The Orchard of Love

If you are patient and calm,
And hide your cares where you can,
Then the power of love will grow in you.

Now let me tell you where I shall then be:
I am in myself in all places and in all things,
As I have always been eternally.

And I shall be waiting for you in the orchard of love
And shall pluck for you the flowers of sweet union
And shall make a bed for you out of the soft grass of holy knowledge,
And the bright sun of my eternal Godhead
Shall make you radiant with the secret wonder of my attractiveness--
A bit of which you have intimately revealed--
And I shall bend down for you the towering tree of my Holy Trinity.

Then you shall pick the green, white, and red apples of my succulent humanity,
And the shadow of my Holy Spirit shall protect you from all earthly sadness.
Then you will have no thought of your heartache.

Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead
(Paulist, 1998) Book II, p. 95.