The loving soul as a huge harbor of peace

 "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 was 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 wrote about giving wrath its place and refusing to allow it to master one's life. I was fascinated by his writings as a young graduate student of monastic history and spirituality in Rome in the 80's and believed that the source of our diverse problems stem from unresolved issues of anger, be they, personal, communal, national or international. In the intervening years, I have endeavoured to focus my life as a person of peace, trying to learn and unravel those fierce storms within. 

   Cassian's words are still relevant today and perhaps, can offer us a challenge in the complexities of our lives, "the loving soul as a huge harbor of peace!"

p.s. Photo credit: Katherine di.S. (Louisiana, USA) in whose honor I dedicate this reflection, my 201st.