Elemental things. Things at the very core of life. Things every moment combining in endless and mysterious permutations. Things that have brought me to this morning and for which every coming day will be lived. Things that swell my heart and ignite my spirit with joy and anticipation.
These are the things sung by the poet, the things which dawn every morning, both timeless and new. God. Love. Marriage. Things without end.
Hope combines with Faith and yields the only certainty God permits us. The certainty of His promise. He never fails us. If we ask, we are given.
We have asked, you and me, and God has answered.
In lines of Scripture written on my heart with news fresh from Heaven, I read the lyrics to the hymn, and it is a love song.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Note: “The idea that marriage is forever is a familiar one. For centuries it has been written about in poems and sung about in songs. Married partners who have tenderly loved one another intuitively know that the same God who brought them together will keep them together–forever.” You may wish to explore the spiritual dimension and eternal nature of the sacramental marriage as revealed to Emanuel Swedenborg and recorded in Conjugial Love, a work which formed the hope expressed by Elizabeth Browning in this poem to her husband Robert.
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Beautiful. You are Swedenborgian?
How blind are the critics of our faith that they cannot see the utter joys it offers both in this life and in the hereafter!