When we accept each moment as a new opportunity for fulfilling our purpose, we are always present, always succeeding, always changing the world for the better. And we are always HERE ... NOW.
Peace be with you and within you, dear friends! How often do we spend a full hour in silence simply listening to the voice deep within our heart? How difficult this an be! Yt as we embrace times of solitude and embrae the Silence, we will come to hear the gentle voice of Love with our heart's ear. So Listen! listen to the still, small Voice for the Beloved's prayer to rise up within your heart. Listening is one way toward peace.
For nine years, the first and third Mondays of the month, I am in silence; I do not speak to anyone for twenty four hours. It's life-changing. It has taught me to listen. When we listen with no responsibility to respond, we can listen fully, which allows us to hear so many things we would not hear if we were talking. This did not start as spiritual exercise, but it has become a very spiritual practice. You hear the truth from deep inside yourself.
~ from "The Boston Globe" 8/5/2001 by Anne D. LeClaire, with thanks to Sandra Cosetti
Listen, listen, listen! All that you will ever need to know is already within you awaiting your inner ear. If you seek to understand your past, the answer is within you. If you need direction for today, the answer is within you. You do not have to seek "out there" for answers to your future. It is already within you awaiting your asking. You do not have to go here or there to find Go or the answer to your simplest or highest question. All you must do is be still and listen to the inner still small voice that forever sings the true song.
Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other person's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own.
When someone deeply listens to you,
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you,
your feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home with you.
The ordinary circumstances of daily life bring back the same routines, and often the sense of going nowhere! But "nowhere" is where God is most active. God and daily life are always in dialogue and sometimes in a state of war. There is a struggle to figure out what god is saying in the events and circumstances of daily life and how daily life is meant to transform us... Listening to God in silent loving attentiveness, enables us to let go of our preconceptions and over-identifications with the events of daily life, which tends to dominate our emotional reactions rather than invite our free response.
What is the sound of listening? A resonating silence, like the infinite fine line between a grey sky and the ocean, where the horizon cannot be distinguished. My soul blends into the silence around me. Into that silence comes a voice:
"I love you. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I give you my peace. You are always with me."
The words sound sweet and tender, gentler than any human voice.
"Blessed are you. Blessed are you. Blessed," says the silence.
Open, attentive listening can be a form of contemplative prayer. It can be that widest, most open form of being present and attentive, in trust that God is present with us, in expectancy that the Spirit will move in the hearts of those present and that we may be changed inwardly for the good or guided to be part of the upwelling of Life in a particular situation.
~ from LISTENING SPIRITUALITY, Vol. I by Patricia Loring
