How many loved your moments of glad grace And loved your beauty with love false or true But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace not the means to anything but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.

I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different and with being this alive this intense. xxvi

Im willing to die for the woman I love. I just want to take 75 years to do it.

it had been a winter of deadening seriousness when all the illusions and bright dreams of my early twenties had withered and died. I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams I was far too busy mourning the death of the old ones and wondering how I was to survive without them. I was sure I could replace them somehow but was not sure I could restore their brassy luster or dazzling impress .

Beauty is not who you are on the outside it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you.

We keep making decisions every day half without thinking half against our will. If we dont fight back if we allow ourselves to change to be changed then once its done we have to do other things and on and on until the person we wanted to be is so far away in the past that we only remember her longingly as if she were a beloved stranger.

I had a dream about you. The seasons changed but you did not. You were the same old person you always were only older. And I was the same old person I always was only younger. Yes Id discovered the Fountain of Youth and since we were such old friends I was going to let you have a swig for 10 off the suggested retail price.

Prayer of an Anonymous AbbessLord thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest Lord that in the end I will need a few friends.Keep me from the recital of endless details give me wings to get to the point.Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.I will not ask thee for improved memory only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesnt agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devils masterpieces.Make me sympathetic without being sentimental helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And Lord give me the grace to tell them so.Amen