We must always be giving each other bread, or money, or jewels, or books, or counsel; and then we think we have accomplished something. But love is the real gift, no other can take its place; but it can take the place of all the rest.
Better to love than be beloved,
Though lonely all the day;
Better the fountain in the heart
Than the fountain by the way.
Self is the only prison that ever binds the soul;
Love is the only angel who can bid the gates unroll:
Jealousy is impossible to love, for ‘love seeketh not its own’; and jealousy is always selfishness.
Fellow Travellers.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.
For truly, nothing does so freeze affection, as the breath of jealousy.
The parable of the Rich Fool, and in fact the whole of Luke Chapter 12, is not about money, nor about bread, nor even about barns. It is about being, ‘rich towards God’ and so proving the faithfulness and loving kindness of God by living generous lives of active service. And being ever-ready to do so….
Our friendships are often clouded, especially in youth, by want of sympathy from our own people.
Happy is the house that shelters a friend.
But to get this real profit from persons one must really meet them, not merely encounter – ‘meet’ them and not merely their outsides.
Suffolk Vicar 