November 26, 2010

• Love Continuing in Gratitude

   
  

  
  

  We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. 
  

  
  

  For time is told also by life. 
  As some depart, others come. 
  The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome.
  

  
  

  [...] And time that is told by death and birth
   is held and redeemed by love, which is always present.
   Time, then, is told by love’s losses,
  and by the coming of love,
  and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. 

  It is folded
  and enfolded
  and unfolded
  forever and ever,
  the love by which the dead are alive
  and the unborn welcomed into the womb. 
  

  
  

  The great question for the old and the dying,
  

  I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough,
  

  but if they have been grateful enough
  

  for love received and given, however much. 
  No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. 
  Let us pray to be grateful to the last.
  
  ~ Wendell Berry in Andy Catlett

  • 11:19 am
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