Yeah, actually it struck me as I was listening to the priest talk. He did a bit more build-up beforehand, and a line or two before the boy's mother points at the sun and says, "That is God, giving away his heat and light." So, from a strictly literal reading "bear the beams" means to experience the rays. I've never thought much of any poem that was only ever strictly literal, though, and I'd give Blake more credit than that. When he quoted the line I thought, "OK, he's going with the 'uphold the structure of love' angle," because that's the only interpretation of the line I thought reasonable. I was surprised when he took the literal reading.

I might have to check out this Art of Love thing, just to see what he says. Loving is, I think, pretty obviously a skill to be honed. I think it's a skill our society is generally rather poor at, most probably because love is seen as another "thing," as our society so loves things. (Overloaded the word in question, damn.)