A hindrance to the fullness of Divine Presence is the lack of silence. The Word comes only in a deeper way when peaceful silence encompasses everything. I may refuse to enter into the night of inner quiet, of non-resistance to the Divine. Then my life is doomed to remain parched and lifeless -- a wasteland. Silence is a gentler rhythm of speaking out and keeping still. The cultivation of silence belongs to the gentle style of life.
~ from SPIRITUALITY AND THE GENTLE LIFE by Adrian van Kaam
There is an incline from silence to language, to the truth of the word; and the gravitational force of this incline pushes truth on still further from language down into the active life of the world.
Rumi said that all words are fingers pointing to the moon, and we think the words are the moon. But because of the light, the light of love, the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, bits of this deeper reality are perceivable, and little bits of it will have to do.
~ from HELP, THANKS, WOW: THE THREE ESSENTIAL PRAYERS by Anne Lamott
The warmth provided by our capacity to love is as necessary for the soul's growth as any part of the meditational way... Love increases as we look out for the strangers and welcome them and particularly as we work at trying to transform our enemies into friends. Steadily the warmth that is given by this kind of action draws the soul toward the reality of the loving God. Step by step the soul's reach grows, so that it becomes easier to find the One who is Love and to carry more Love out actively to others.
Winding down a path unknown
With souls entwined together
Staying in the dark recesses of the
underworld, waiting patiently
Until that which has been forgotten
Can be remembered
And once remembered, can be healed.
~from DANCING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS by Margaret Smerlinski
In living with the mystery, we realize that recognizing our wounds is a prerequisite for recognizing and embracing the wounds of another. The fruit of personal suffering is a more compassionate heart....When this important first step is taken, when each of us tears away the bandages and takes the risk to allow our wounds to breathe, we begin to conspire together for the healing of our world.
~ from THE CONSPIRACY OF COMPASSION by Joseph Nassal
Great strength exists in the smallest things... Love can be a mere glance, a brief word, a silent touch. But it reaches past time and space and mere existence. Prayer, short, deep—a word from the depth of heart and spirit can work miracles and change a whole world.
~ from A CHEROKEE FEAST OF DAYS by Joyce Sequiche Hifler
The skin of deeply spiritual persons
is not a dividing membrane
that separates them from the world—
but
a connecting membrane,
a permeable membrane,
through which
events of the world and
events of their inner life
flow into one another.
~ from TOWARD A GLOBAL SPIRITUALITY by Patricia Mische
Think of the high noon of summer, or of the stillness of a snow-covered country, how the heat or lightness everywhere gives an intense sense of overflowing and abounding life, making a quietness of rapture rather than fear. Such, only of a deeper and far more intimate kind, is the atmosphere of waiting souls...Gradually, as mind, soul and even body grow still, sinking deeper and deeper into the life of God, the pettiness, the tangles, the failures of the outer life begin to be seen in their true proportions, and the sense of the divine infilling, uplifting, redeeming Love becomes real and illuminating.
