I have been reading a fascinating book by Rubem A. Alves based on his Cadbury Lectures in 1990: The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet. He is a brasilian poet and philosopher. It is not the sort of book you can describe as it is poetic, philosophical and profound, and as elusive as running water.Alves sees the love of God as the soil out of which all beauty grows. He quotes Bonhoeffer's letter of 20th May 1944, written shortly before his execution, using a different image:

"There is always a danger of intense love destroying what I might call the 'polyphony' of life. What I mean is that God requires that we should love him eternally with our whole hearts, yet not so as to compromise or diminish our earthly affections, but as a kind of cantus firmus to which the other melodies of life provide a counterpoint. Where the ground bass is firm and clear, there is nothing to stop the counterpoint from being developed to the utmost of its limits. Both ground bass and counterpoint are 'without confusion and yet distinct', in the words of the Chalcedon formula, like Christ in his divine and human natures........ Only a polyphony of this kind can give life a wholeness, and at the same time assure us that nothing can go wrong so long as the cantus firmus is kept going...."

Shortly before quoting Bonhoeffer, Alves suggested:

"God created the universe as a mirror where his / hers / its beauty could be seen. The beauty which we see in the world is the beauty which abides in our bodies. 'In the object we contemplate we become acquainted with ourselves.' (Feuerbach) The universe is God's mirror, we are God's mirror, we are the universe's mirror. 'Our body is a thinking mirror of the universe...'

In deed, how could God create a Paradise if this garden of delights were not alive in her inexhaustible body. The garden is the visible image of the divine beauty...

We were born in a garden, there is a garden inside our bodies, and we are destined by divine vocation to be gardeners, because God also is a gardener. God was not happy in the infinity of the universe. His work moves from boundless lifeless spaces of the universe to this little, circumscribed space, where life makes love with beauty. In the garden his work is finished. In the garden he finds pleasure. He rests from his work. He becomes, then, pure contemplation, pure play, pure enjoyment. Nothing else is to be done. No ethics, no commandment, no politics: there is fruit to be eaten.

As opposed to the scientists who look for the abstract, God gives birth to the most concrete. It is in the concreteness of beauty that God's universality is revealed.

In the mystery of the Never-Ending

balances a planet.

And, on the planet, a garden,

and, in the garden, a flower-bed;

and in the flower-bed, a violet,

and all day long, above the violet,

between the planet and the Never-Ending,

a butterfly's wing.

Cecilia Meireles

I sometimes find it difficult to settle down to intellectual or spiritual reading and prefer to make mandalas - never as simple as it seems. Sister C. showed me an abstract picture I did long ago of a cat and flowers. She thought it would make a good mandala centre.

June is the month devoted to the love of God as portrayed by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our community adopted this devotion in 1913, shortly after our reception into the Church. I wonder how the nuns responded to Catholic devotions? I was quite startled by the multiplicity of devotions in the Italian convent I entered in 1966, being a recent convert, and not used to statues showing signs of wounds dripping blood. I actually found this rather repulsive, even if they are now glorious wounds.

Anyway, I had to learn that the 'heart of man' is his true inner being, capable of both good and evil, and we all have to learn to 'seek good and pursue it.' The Rule of Saint Benedict begins thus: "Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart ..." In our secular society this sounds very strange. It is an appeal to strip away all 'sounds' of unreality which hide the person we really are - and scarcely know - and to listen to words which are creative and healing. In a way, it is calling us out of hiding. Before that can happen, we have to learn that the person speaking to us is entirely altruistic. This recognition of 'altruism' is important. Many of us have experienced forms of manipulation and emotional black-mail, and so we have to learn to trust the speaker and his / her words through listening and applying them. So the words have to reach the 'ear of the heart', and through this hearing to become life-giving and transformative to our whole being.

The heart is now identified with the seat of love, with the Sacred Heart of Jesus depicting suffering love. Simeon had warned Mary that her heart would be pierced through what would happen to her beloved son. Heaven knows there cannot be many fathers and mothers who have not suffered with their children or because of their children.... But the heart is more than the seat of love and potential suffering. It has eyes of its own, and a clean heart has the ability to see God - everywhere. This wonderful Beatitude became my favourite one, until a certain insight revealed that 'seeing God' meant a further transformation of attitude and life: everything matters because everything comes from God - even the soiled, broken and defiled.