How is it I can love You

by Symeon the New Theologian

English version by Ivan M. Granger
Original Language Greek

How is it I can love You
     within me,
     yet see You from afar?

How is it I embrace You
     within myself,
     yet see you spread across the heavens?

You know. You alone.
     You, who made this mystery,
     You who shine
like the sun in my breast,
     You who shine
     in my material heart,
          immaterially.

-- from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

A riddle for us today. How can God dwell in such a small house as the human body and awareness, yet permeate the vastness of creation?

Symeon is not asking these questions as an intellectual game, however. This is not a dry theological exercise. His questions arise from the genuine surprise at this paradox as it reveals itself through direct perception: The Divine is both intimate and all-encompassing, within yet everywhere. The intellect can't comprehend how this can be, yet the mystic is confronted with it undeniably. With total disregard for the mind's inability to grasp this truth, a giddy radiance pours out from your breast while, at the same time, it fills the universe.








How is it I can