Young lovers see a vision of the world redeemed by love. That is the truest thing they ever see, for without it life is death.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time...of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here...It is in the world, but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.

Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.

I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my very own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just as it did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown.

The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't.

I loved the different voices all singing one song, the various tones and qualities, the passing lifts of feeling, rising up and going out forever. Old Man Profet, who was a different man on Sunday, used to draw out the notes at the ends of verses so he could listen to himself, and in fact it sounded pretty.

Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, ormmembership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian.

And they ate supper before they said grace...Oh, um...she moved into his house, stayed awhile, and then they got married.

Love fills the empty places and flows from what was once the epicenter of the wound. And it's the flowing that washes out the residue of the pain and makes us whole again. That's the crazy miracle that is love. The more you pour out, the more you have to pour.

The heart is not only the most unselfish of organs, it is also the most courageous and faithful.

Love has its own communication—one you can't prove in a courtroom, in a lab experiment, or on a doctor's chart. It's the language of the heart, and while it has never been transcribed, has no alphabet, and can't be heard or spoken by voice, it is used by every human on the planet. It is written on our souls, scripted by the finger of God, and we can hear, understand, and speak it with perfection long before we open our eyes for the first time.