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off a couple of years ago, well, Margery just sort of left her behind. She
needed people who could run an organisation, not just hire halls and carry
bags. Plus, she just didn t have the time to baby Delia any more. So Delia
killed herself.
 Does Margery know it was suicide?
 Oh no. I m sure she doesn t. She was devastated.
 How sad.
 It was. Mostly it s sad Delia couldn t have made a match. She would have made
someone an utterly devoted wife.
 Even if that someone was another woman.
 Well, yes.
 Would Margery have approved?
 There are several woman couples in the Temple, she certainly doesn t seem to
mind them. She seems to feel it depends on the people, that the love is the
important thing.
We walked a few steps before I passed judgement.
 Strikes me as dead boring, I said flatly, and she started to giggle.
 I d have to agree, she said finally, and then:  Are you a virgin, Mary? Oh
dear, that sounds blasphemous, and she giggled again.
 Yes, I am, I replied. She looked sharply over at me.
 But only just? she asked shrewdly.
 But only just, I confirmed.  And you?
 No. We were engaged, after all.
 Don t apologise, for heaven s sake.
 Oh, I don t regret it, not at all. To tell you the truth, I ve missed Miles
terribly. Not having him at all is almost worse than having him drugged. I
hope to God& 
She didn t need to say what she hoped. I put my arm across her shoulder and
hugged her, thickly through all the garments, and we walked on in friendship
to hear the words of Margery Childe.
As we approached the building, the air came alive with the vibration of voices
raised in harmony. Ronnie smiled and quickened her step.
 Good, they re still singing. We haven t missed Margery. Come on.
She led me, not in through the ranks of double doors that opened into the back
of the hall, but up a side stairway marked ticket holders only. The
usher/guard nodded at our greetings and we hurried as the noise from inside
came to an end. Amidst coughs and shuffles and the dying hum of speech, we
entered a door marked private. Inside was the Temple s Inner Circle, most of
whom I had met the other night. They made room for us, a couple of them
looking me over and dismissing me because of my clothing, and then the hall
dimmed and fell quiet as all eyes went to the diminutive figure on the stage.
She was wearing a robe of darkly luminous silver-grey, and she seemed to glow.
It took me some minutes to realise that she was in fact being followed by a
spotlight only marginally brighter than the stage lights, and I smiled at the
professionalism of the effect. However, I had to admit that not all the glow
was an artifice. The magnetic pull I had begun to discount as my imagination
was there, stronger than on Monday already and building as the evening I
cannot bring myself to call it a service wore on. Her movements were languid,
her eyes dark as she talked about the nature of love.
She waited for complete attention, for utter silence, before she dropped her
first words into the packed hall, nearly seven hundred pairs of ears, I heard
later, a quarter of them men.
 My friends, she said, her voice low and vibrant,  tonight s topic is love.
Inaudible ripples ran through the room. She let them die down, then suddenly
smiled.  On the other hand, love is hardly a topic about which we can speak.
Love is the force behind speech. Love is the thing that speaks us. To quote my
friend John,  God is love. A person who does not love does not know God. And,
when one loves, one loves God.
 But, what does he mean by love? What do we mean by love?
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
 Think for a moment about another word: light. Light. If I were to take a
stack of paper and give a sheet of it to each one of you and ask you to use it
to describe what the word light means, do you imagine I should find even two
pages that matched? I would get drawings: a lightbulb with its twist of
filament, a gas fixture, a candle, the sun. She looked out into the audience,
her head tipped attentively, the attitude of a schoolmistress listening for
answers.  A bolt of lightning, she said, as if repeating what she heard for
the benefit of the rest.  And oh, yes, I see, a baby who doesn t weigh enough.
And  her eyes shifted  a woman who wishes she weighed less. And a brilliant
hot summer s afternoon when the sun bouncing off the street hurts the eyes.
And the first gleam of sunrise, and the difficulties of an artist to capture
the essence of a place in its light, and a man  She did a double take, and
her lips twitched.  A gentleman looking forward to igniting his cigar when
this is over, and she smiled with the hall s laughter.   In the
beginning,  she chanted,   God created the heavens and the earth; And the
earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; And God said,  Let
there be  
She stopped abruptly, holding the silence for several long seconds.
 If all these images can come from the word light, how many more from the word
love, a thing invisible but for the movement it creates, a thing without
physical reality or measurement or being, yet a thing which animates the
entire universe. God is love. God creates, and when He sees His creation, He
loves it and calls it good.
 The love of God, the joy God takes in Creation, is incomprehensible to us. We
can catch a glimpse of it, at rare moments, and be left thirsting and alone,
kept from the beauty and the power of divine love by the shackles of
responsibility and weakness and doubt. But the soul thirsts, we thirst, and we
look for the weak reflections of divine love where we might find them, that if [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]