#Aquinas: " #Love brings it about that lovers are directed not only twd themselves, but also twd others." 
Love expands, is inclusive. It enlarges the soul, one's thoughts, actions, politics, economics. It births imagination, struggles for justice, stands in solidarity & compassion. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: "Every #love causes ecstasy. To suffer ecstasy means to be placed outside oneself."
Ecstasy is bigger than us: it comes w/ every love, transforms us & makes us new. The love of a tree, a bird, a poem, a dance, a friend, an enemy - any love whatsoever causes ecstasy. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: "No person is in such #darkness as to be completely devoid of #divinelight. The divine light shines in the darkness & radiates upon all." Even in the darkest of circumstances, the darkest of dark nights, the divine light shines & radiates therein. Even when we cannot see it. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: " #Hope is about the possible; despair is about the impossible." We humans are adept at seeing & dwelling on the impossible till it takes over our souls. To maintain hope is to look for possibility, creative solutions, alternatives. Hope keeps our souls & imaginations alive. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: " #Love is cause of all the lover does....Love is the cause of both pleasure & sorrow."
Even sorrow happens b/c of love. Deepest #loss is directly related to deepest love, the source of great joy. Love undergirds all our deepest exper. in life, negative as well as positive. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: "The freezing or hardening of the ❤️ is a disposition incompatible w/ #love, while melting denotes a softening of the ❤️..." No love can follow w/o this softening, in any relationship.
Has #patriarchy taught men how to soften their ❤️s? Might much more melting be in store? https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas: "Every love makes the beloved to be in the lover, & the lover in the beloved."
True lovers strive for a mutual "in-ness," lover merging w/ beloved. Love drives us beyond superficial knowledge of the beloved to intimate, in-depth knowledge, of the very soul of the beloved. https://bit.ly/453ossb

#Aquinas’s favorite virtue was #magnanimity: “brave great dangers for great things:...common welfare, justice, divine worship....” #RabbiHeschel calls on all people: God demands every person to do #justice: it is the supreme commandment wh. cannot be fulfilled vicariously. https://bit.ly/4wvN6gS

#CreationSpirituality welcomes #science b/c CS seeks to know all we can abt #nature & #creation. #Aquinas warned in 13th century: "A mistake abt creation results in a mistake abt God." So too, insight abt creation results in insight abt God. bit.ly/4hkaVA6
#OrderOfTheSacredEarth
UNC botanist takes water sample. Wikimedia