"Human nature - body and soul. That means so much more than the word "flesh" conveys at first hearing. It means flesh and blood, nerves, the five senses, the sensitive soul, thought, feeling, reactions to other people and to environment - intellect, art, poetry, genius. Although human beings smear everything they touch, they leave us touches of beauty wherever they go, too; evidence that the senses receive their unique gifts of grace, wonder, joy, and gratitude because of the beauty that is in their environment. St. Thomas says that the Being of God is the cause of the beauty of all that is. The Being of God, then, presses upon man. It is his environment. It sings to him in the winds. When he touches grass or water, he touches it with his fingers; he smells it in fields of hay and clover and in newly cut wood; he listens to it in the falling of the rain and the murmur of the sea. He tastes it in the food that he eats; he sees it in the flowers beneath his feet; he is clothed in it ..." ~ Thomas Merton