Worthy points to ponder

I've been reading the mystics again. Here are two quotes that continue to stick with me:

* "Hope always draws the soul from the beauty that is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype." -- Gregory of Nyssa

This speaks directly to my last post's musings. Searching for any number of things to fill the void, the only thing that truly fills is the archetype: The Holy.

* "Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! And behold, you were within me and I was outside, and there I sought for you, and in my deformity I rushed headlong into the well-formed things that you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all. You called and cried out to me and broke open my deafness; you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness; you breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I now pant for you; I tasted and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace." -- St. Augustine of Hippo, Book Ten of his Confessions

How often we search for that which is already there. "You were with me, and I was not with you." Deep calls to deep...