If one saw a person who was always loving, but not easygoing; utterly kind, but not to the point of creating dependency; very wise, and clearly able to intuit the future; never condemning, yet always understanding; willing to descend into the mire of human conditions to help someone rise out of it; prepared to share anything they had with another; utterly firm when necessary for the soul's sake; one might say, "S/he is the most Christ-like person I have ever met". But one still would not know the inner status of that person. The most important discoveries we make are not on the level of intellect at all. They are inward knowledge of absolute certitude; this is the result of a grace bestowed when the recipient is inwardly ready to see ... and often arises out of times of silence and solitude.
To be able to love material things, to clothe them with tender grace, and yet not be attached to them, this is a great service. Providence expects that we should make this world our own, and not lie in it as though it were a rented tenement. We can only make it our own through some service, and that service is to lend it love and beauty from our soul. Your own experience shows you the difference between the beautiful, the tender, the hospitable, and the mechanically neat and monotonously useful. Gross utility kills beauty. We now have all over the world huge productions of things, huge organizations, huge administrations of empire–all obstructing the path of life. Civilization is waiting for a great consummation, for an expression of its soul in beauty. This must be your contribution to the world.