How can you be both a blazing hearth and a cool fountain,
A burning, yet a sweetness that cleanses us?
How can you make humankind a god, darkness light
And draw new life from the pit of death?
How does night become day? Can you overcome gloom?
Take the flame to our hearts and change the depths of our being?
How are you simply one with us? How do you give us the Son of God?
How do you burn us with love and wound us without a sword?
How can you bear us and remain so slow to anger,
Yet from where you are watch our smallest gestures here?
How do you follow our actions from so high and so far?
Your servant waits for peace and courage in tears.
St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymn 6
Locus Communis 