A common way of praying for me is to allow myself to move deeply within into the center of self. I may begin by presenting a situation of concern to God and then move into silence. This is a dark (not depressing) kind of praying, but I descend deep into the mystery where there is both peace and silence; I lose consciousness of the time and place in which I exist in the moment and move into the darkness of God, into unknowing... I return to waking consciousness feeling vulnerable and empowered; I experience tenderness and new awareness.
~ from FROM CENTER TO CIRCUMFERENCE by Elizabeth-Ann Vanek
AUTUMN GREETINGS, dear friends. May blessings of deep inner silence and peace be with you. For in this inner stillness, the Spirit of Love anoint th soul, and, in silene, our deepest wounds can receive the oil of healing.
The world without tears is a heartless world. The soul that sheds no tears is a soul without love. O God, save us from turning into statues of tearlessness! This must be our prayer. Tears are signs of life; they bring life back to the world. Tears well out of the heart of love; they restore to the human community the ability to love. Tears take form in cries and struggles for justice; they revive the soul of our century for a promise and a future. And it is in the people capable of tears that a promise of human community and a future for the world lie.
BLESSINGS, dear friends! Precious to the soul are the pauses in the silence in these intense and, all too often, stressful times. May we each bless ourselves and those around us with soul-breaks throughout the day.
There is a way that the soul can get crowded out of one's day. The soul is a bit shy and does not demand center stage. She lives a life of her own, and yet there are soulprints in every fiber of your being, even in things you've forgotten. The soul is the keeper of memories. She knows where beauty is stored. She contains the memories of your entire life. Deep in your unconscious she stands guard. If you are in need of a particular memory she can reveal it to you and help you to bear both the beauty and the pain. She knows all about the gold in your memories.
~ from GOLD IN YOUR MEMORIES by Macrina Wiederkehr
Your soul is your life. Everything else is a fiction -- a mind game in authenticity. Without nourishing your own soul, you can't nourish the world; you can't give what you don't have. As your soul grows, however, it emanates invisibly and involuntarily the light which it has received.
"Hearing with the soul" refers to perception with the spiritual senses, to an awakening of a new quality of perception. It is an inbreaking of a contemplative awareness that is capable of perceiving all reality as illumined and suffused by God, as graced with tremendous potential. ...The awakening of the spiritual senses can happen to all of us. We are all capable of "hearing with the soul."
In the resurrected state, there comes an utter silence of the soul. By that silence, the advanced pilgrim lives in God and lives from God. It is silence of soul that he or she communicates with God. A soul that is thus dead to its own working and to all provision of itself, to that soul, SILENCE becomes both a wonderful TRANSMISSION and RECEIVING of Divine communication.
