The loving soul as a huge harbor

Louisiana - photo credit K. diStefano, friend.

"Do not allow your heart to be confined in the straits of impatience and cowardice, so that when a fierce storm of passion rises, you cannot endure it; but, be enlarged in your heart, receiving the adverse waves of anger in the wide gulf of that love ... which suffers all things, bears all things. These waves of anger will be received and diffused and forthwith vanish away."
                  (Cassian's Conferences, chapter XVI,7.)

John Cassian is a 4th century monastic writer who used this metaphor to describe the loving soul as a huge harbor absorbing anger and thus, calming the storm. He writes about giving wrath its place and refusing to allow it to master one's life. I am a firm believer that the source of our diverse problems today stem from unresolved issues of anger, be they, personal, communal, national or international. As a graduate student of monastic history and spirituality in the 80's, I discovered Cassian in Rome and have tried to focus my life as a person of peace. 

In memoriam +Daniel M., co-author of this blog, a loving soul and a 'harbor of peace.'