A man met an angel carrying a torch and bucket of water. The man asked the angel, "What are you doing?" The angel replied, "With the torch I'm going to burn down the mansions of heaven, and with the water I'm going to quench the fires of hell." The man asked, "Why would you want to do that?" The angel said, "To see who really loves God."

The spiritual life is a movement from all loves being apart from Grace, to Grace being in all loves, to all loves being in Grace, to all loves being Grace. Each affection and act of love and loving is from and inside Love, or Grace. Your loving is God loving, for God is Love and you, consequently, have no true love apart from God. The effect, in Grace, takes on the nature of the Source, which is Grace. Grace is God, and God is this Grace.

Ultimately, then, true loving leads to a spontaneity and naturalness of loving as you~in~God to the other~in~God. In this Love you think not of getting heaven as reward or hell as judgment.

The contemplative, through reverent Silence, moves beyond all thought of reward and judgment to the bliss of the gift of Love and loving, as well as being loved by Love within Love and through others. There is no point at which Grace loving and Grace as Love and your loving is other than the same being and act of Beauty, or God.

Do your prayerful meditation using as your prayer word, or mantra, the word "Love." Allow the sensation of Love to permeate your body. Breathe "love" in to yourself; breathe "love" out to everyone.