virgin

she is a fruited garden

that has never felt hands

where birds alight to feast

among the flowers of her orchard

trees stand tall before her

bowed by winds blown through her

she's a flowered meadow and glen

upon which to lay ones head

*Thoughts from Alan Jones:

  -Crying is a natural phenomenon and the withholding of tears appears to be dangerous to health.

  (quoted from the New York Times)

  -He who is aware of his sins is greater than one who can raise the dead.  Whoever can weep over himself for one hour is greater than the one who is able to teach the whole world; whoever recognizes the depth of his own frailty is greater than the one who sees visions of angels.

(quoted from Isaac of Ninive)

  -Something positive is released when tears flow.

  -Sooner or later, believers and unbelievers alike have to face the issues of misfortune, pain and death; and these issues are at the heart of religion.

  -Tears flow when the real source of our life is uncovered, when the mask of pretense is dropped, when our strategies of self-deception are abandoned.  Trials and humiliations are necessary only insofar as they are the means by which our life is uncovered.

  -To come to the place where one is truly alive, one must hit rock-bottom.  There must be a breakthrough to the place of deepest helplessness.  "Then at last," writes Andre Louf, "a beginning can be made."