From a letter from Lou Andreas-Salomé to Rainer Maria Rilke in Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters, New York: Norton, 2006, pp. 58-59.
That one “most real thing” which in your recent letter you said you wished you could cling to when inner fears drive everything away from you and seem to leave you abandoned to an alien world, — you already have it inside you, that one real thing, planted in there like a hidden seed and thus not yet present to you. You possess it now in this sense: you have become like a little plot of earth into which all that falls — and be it even things mangled and broken, things thrown away in disgust — must enter an alchemy and become food to nourish the buried seed. No matter if at first it looks like a pile of sweepings thrown out over the soul: it all turns to loam, becomes you.
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In this passage Lou Andreas-Salomé acts as a mirror to her friend the poet Rilke. She reflects back what she is able to see happening in him while it still remains hidden from him. Such deep friendship makes the world different.
Loving God, please help us to be accepting, honest friends to each other, reflecting your love back to each other like mirrors.
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