James Finley invites us to approach John of the Cross' poem, "The Spiritual Canticle," not just as subject matter. "We are to read it as the opening up of our hearts, that we might rest in . . . this oneness and communion in each other and as each other. In your most childlike hour, you're asked to surrender to that oneness. And a transformative experience occurs. Love is transforming us into itself." [1]

Allow your heart to open that you might rest in your communion with God as you read a selection from John of the Cross' poetic conversation between lovers, between bride and groom:

Bride

In the inner wine cellar

I drank of my beloved, and when I went abroad

Through all this valley

I no longer knew anything,

And lost the herd that I was following.

There he gave me his breast;

There he taught me a sweet and living knowledge;

And I gave myself to him,

Keeping nothing back;

There I promised to be his bride.

Now I occupy my soul

And all my energy in his service;

I no longer tend the herd,

Nor have I any other work

Now that my every act is love

With flowers and emeralds

Chosen on cool mornings

We shall weave garlands

Flowering in your love,

And bound with one hair of mine.

You considered

That one hair fluttering at my neck;

You gazed at it upon my neck;

And it captivated you;

And one of my eyes wounded you.

When you looked at me

Your eyes imprinted your grace in me;

For this you loved me ardently;

And thus my eyes deserved

To adore what they beheld in you.

Do not despise me;

For if, before, you found me dark,

Now truly you can look at me

Since you have looked

And left in me grace and beauty.

Bridegroom

The small white dove

Has returned to the ark with an olive branch;

And now the turtledove

Has found its longed-for mate

By the green river banks.

She lived in solitude,

And now in solitude has built her nest;

And in solitude he guides her,

He alone, who also bears