If our lives are too busy, even though it is what we see as worthwhile work, it is simply an excuse, an escape from God. God, and many of us spend a lifetime avoiding it. We need time that is set apart just to get to know God. ... It is time in silence for listening. And eventually it becomes a time when we are continually aware of God's presence. As the clutter is moved out of lives, we gradually begin to realize that there is no longer a separation between the sacred and profane, for all is holy, all is sacred. Work no longer an escape, since all is filled with God's presence.
"Silence is sound from the future, an intimation of eternity. Eternity has begun for me. I carry eternity within me; it is slowly, silently growing out of me. More is becoming eternalized, forevered. 'Whoever really possesses the Word of Jesus can sense also his silence' (Ignatius of Antioch). Silence is our way of going into the desert, into eternity ... We each carry our own found anywhere else. Another can enable us to discover the hidden silence within ourselves. It is a special gift to receive the depth silence of another. Silence is a presence, a receptivity, a readiness, a waiting, a listening."
Lead us, O God, into paths from which our spirits shrink because the demand is so great. Give to us the quiet confidence, without trumpet blast, without arrogance and pride, declamation, flag waving ... but just a simple, simple trust. Let us be true to that which You have entrusted into our keeping, the integrity of our own souls. For us, O God, this is enough. Amen.
~ from TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS by Howard Thurmond with thanks to Fredi Brown
The experience of prayer is the experience of coming into full union with the energy that created the universe. What Christianity has to proclaim to the world is that that energy is LOVE and it is the well-spring out of which all creation flows. It is the well-spring that gives each one of us the creative power to be the person we are called to be -- a person rooted and formed in love.
~ from MOMENT OF CHRIST: THE PATH OF MEDITATION by John Main
The person who loves never abandons contemplation. On the contrary, s/he alone thirsts for it in the right spirit ... God gives Love to those in prayer, and the more s/he loves others, the better s/he can understand. Being filled with God's love, one is capable of a new love for one another -- a joyful and self-forgetting love. Love brings contemplation itself into the mystery of change. It is no longer a neutral point from which the transformations of love are beheld; it is carried away in the flood of the love which is ever the same and ever new, forever changing.
Silence is the home of the word. Silence gives strength and fruitfulness to the word. We can even say that words are meant to disclose the mystery of the silence from which they come ... Words can only create communion and thus new life when they embody the silence from which they emerge ... Thus silence is the mystery of the future world. It keeps us pilgrims and prevents us from becoming entangled in the cares of this age. It guards the fire of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. It allows us to speak a word that participates in the creative and recreative power of God's own Word.
When one says to the great Thinker: "Here is one of your thoughts: I am thinking it now," that is a prayer -- a word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts.
