Edward Searl, a minister for 27 years, has put together another fine and diverse collection of poems, quotations, and readings — this time on love and marriage. His other collections are Bless This Child (to celebrate birth) and Beyond Absence (on death and remembrance). He states:

"Falling in love is a peak experience — fiercely private but nevertheless universal. Over time, love becomes a matter of faith. It takes trust and will for two people to stay together, to work out difficulties, to lean on each other for support, and to open to each other fully. We celebrate commitment for its strength, courage, hope, patience, and constancy. Love and marriage remake our world through the togetherness of each couple, in every day of their relationship."

The poems, quotations, and readings in this paperback are organized under the following themes: Love Is the Only Magic, Blessings We Would Pray, I Would Follow Your Soul, The Ache of It, This May Be All We Need, and The Silver Road.

Here is a sampler of these treasures:

• "Gadzooks! What a big chunk of God is to be found by looking into the face of someone you love!"
— Lorna Landvik quoted in Patty Jane's House of Curl

• "Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be a shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there is no loneliness for you;
Now there is no more loneliness.

Now you are two bodies,
but there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place,
to enter into your days together.

And may your days be good
and long on the earth."
— Apache song quoted in Weddings from the Heart by Daphne Rose Kingma

• "Our love has been anything but perfect and anything but static. Inevitably there have been times when one of us has outrun the other and has had to wait patiently for the other to catch up. There have been times when we have misunderstood each other, demanded too much of each other, been insensitive to the other's needs. I do not believe there is any marriage where this does not happen. The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys. I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert lines are simply the only way to get to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been without it."
— Madeleine L'Engle in The Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage