Syriac Prayer (2)

What wonders has your love effected!
When someone is still alive
he has left this world:
though his bodily condition remains
with the world’s bodily condition,
yet his spirit has been raised up towards You,
so that for a period of time
he is where he knows not,
being totally raptured and drawn towards You.

— John of Apamea, in, “The Syriac Fathers On Prayer And The Spiritual Life,” translated from the original Syriac-Aramaic by Sebastian Brock, Cistercian Publications.

Taken from a Yahoo list on Christian Mystics.