O, You who are ever giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, You are our true life, luminous, wonderfulo, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.
In silence we discover ourselves, our actual presence to the life in us and around us. When we are present, deeply attentive, we cannot be busy controlling. Instead we become beholders -- giving ourselves up to the mystery of things. We become more willing to let things be. And, as a consequence we can also let ourselves be.
Through silence our days are illumined -- like rooms filled with light -- so we may inhabit our lives.
You are silence. Silence unites us, while words divide us. Silence gathers us together, while words scatter us. Silence invites us to peace, while words stir us to wars. You are silence, simple silence, eloquent silence, active silence, contemplative silence. ... Help me to be eloquently silent -- exactly as You are.
~ ~ from BOLD PRAYERS FROM THE HEART by Jean Maalouf with thanks to Pat Prescott
Don't think that those who enter the silence of God are "silent". Nothing could be farther from the truth! Silence is a thunder! You will be able to hear it everywhere. Your nights and days will be filled with it. ...Many confuse silence with solitude. Solitude is being alone with God, waiting for God. But silence is an immense sea into which you enter and never leave. And once you have plunged into this silence, you will always be silent.
~ ~ from MOLCHANIE by Catherine de Hueck Doherty with thanks to Elizabeth Fribance
It is only in silence and through silence that we can interiorize what is beyond our comprehension and apprehend the power of a design larger than ourselves: it is the medium of transcendence.
Silence, waiting, empty stillness: these are not achievements we accomplish but living forces beyond ourselves which we learn to flow with, surrender to. There is a River of Stillness, or Musical Silence, or Beautiful Darkness flowing through the heart of al beings which we enter into when we allow ourselves to rest in quiet, in silence, waiting. The contemplative way is to begin listening to this dancing stillness.
~ ~ "Stillness Dancing" by Br. Gregory with thanks to Susan Ray
Spend time in solitude and silence. Solitude permits us to retreat from the press and struggle in order to let our fragmented and dispersed selves to become collected again. Silence goes hand in hand with solitude. Silence sensitizes, just as noise desensitizes.
There are three things needed, for which you don't require a computer, television or radio. The first is a bit of stillness. Nothing can happen if there isn't a certain stillness. We also need silence. There is nothing so vocal and articulate as silence; all good language, all great words, are born of it. Meister Eckhart said, "there is nothing in the universe that so much resembles God as silence". So we need to return back beneath our language to the silence within us. And the third thing we need is solitude ... an invitation for the soul to come alive.
