“Our ultimate felicity,” writes the poet Coventry Patmore, “will consist . . . of innumerable unique . . . individualities, . . . each one shining with its proper lustre, which shall be as unlike any other lustre as that of a sapphire is from that of a ruby or an emerald.” This is fortunate, since love is what occurs in the face of difference, not sameness. In God’s garden, we will continue to blossom differently. And in that difference, we find a chemistry and a harmony, a spark across the gap, that consumes us all.
