If children are to keep alive their inborn sense of wonder, they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with them the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. For those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
When time is a friend, you relish how it works. You know that your purpose is within you and that eventually time will unfold a dream, an integrating vision for your life purpose. ... My future is behind me. I can't see it, while I can see my past which runs out in front of me.
He was still and gazed deeply into the infinite pool that bears stars into being. Above him was a tiny smudge of light that was the closest galaxy. It was spinning, spinning, but so far away that one could look for a whole lifetime and not see it alter. The galaxies out there whirled into each other like discs, blinding into space without colliding--passing through each other at thousands of miles per second, yet they did not appear to move.
Suddenly he understood: Time is an illusion of the mind. Only love remains.
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
The universe is singing, blanketed in a cocoon of sublime music. Listen in the silence and let music enter the secret places of your soul, and be soothed. Allow harmonic resonances of music to lift your spirit to higher vibrations. For, joy dwells here. Nature in all Her glory eternally sings creation's Love-Song orchestrated by the Great Musician. All is music! In the Silence, tune in.
There is a pressing need for something to be made known, for the secrets of the heart to be made public, for the music of the soul to be played. For centuries lovers of God have held the secrets of Divine Love within their own hearts, shared only with a few. But this knowledge needs to be made public, the song of Love's oneness to be heard. If the music of Divine Love is not played in the marketplaces, life will lose its meaning, and the collective despair of the soul will be too terrible to imagine.
I heard the first measures of music and was thinking how lovely it was to be in this small church in a distant land. Then a solo voice took over the room, filling everything with its power, and my next breath came with difficulty. I have never, anywhere, heard a human voice so Pure, a sound so penetrating: outside of me, then suddenly inside of me, tearing down resistances I didn't even know I had ... its love so piercing that everyone began to weep involuntarily. When I opened my eyes nothing prepared me for what I saw. The young voice was coming from eighty-three-year-old Jonas, who was singing the "Sanctus," by Beethoven, with a beauty that could not be explained. It was like the Soul of all life summoning each spirit who listened.
Music was bestowed on humankind for the sake of effecting harmonious revolutions of the soul within us whenever its rhythmic motions are disturbed. Thus when the soul has lost its harmony, melody, and rhythm, music assists in restoring it to order and concord.
~ Bruno Meinecke in MUSIC AND MEDICINE ed. by Schullian & Schoen
I once heard the pianist, Arthur Rubinstein, being interviewed. At one point he was asked to share his experience of playing Chopin's Nocturnes. He said in effect, "I do not know what it is. But over and over again I have had the experience of sitting in a crowded concert hall playing the Nocturnes and I can feel everyone in the room waiting for the next note." In this moment of waiting, all present find their contemplative community in their oneness with one another in the boundless mystery that enraptures them.
You wouldn't think It would be so easy To forget Who we really are Or that death is always at our shoulder Or that everything is alive Or that God is everywhere singing.
There is a certain relevance to life that is hard to hear in the business of the day. The past and future come pounding on my brain. It is in the time I spend alone with God that I tune my soul to the music of the dance. I can begin to hear the song in the most wondrous places, in the most unexpected circumstances. I am called to the rhythm and even if no one else has ears, I enter in the song.
Consider learning how to sing or play a musical instrument, not for professional reasons but as a way to interact with the angels and to enjoy sound. Recently, I started playing my flute again. When I sit outside and play my flute it is exhilarating . I treasure these moments where I can return to the heaven-sent birds even the most meager reflection of the beautiful music they offer me throughout the year.
We who love music of any type share one thing in common. Music touches us intellectually and emotionally. We love the notes, the rhythm, the percussion--the sound. It stirs us where we live. It speaks to us. ... Maybe our styles of faith differ from one another, but there is one binding love, this one celestial music that supersedes our differences and joins us at our hearts, into God. Loving music of any type makes us similar. Our problem is that we tend to note the differences, not the similarities.
Next I saw the most lucid air, in which I heard in a marvelous way many kinds of musicians praising the joys of the heavenly citizens. ... And their sound was like the voice of a multitude, making music in harmony.
I find it impossible to doubt music while actually playing it. Even as the rest of my life seems overpopulated with questions and uncertainties about why one thing should be done instead of another, in the midst of the playing, dancing around silence and space with the presence of notes, the music always seems to matter. I still want to reach for those notes that must be played, that are right because they are essential melodies, unavoidable tones, songs that cannot be defied. This music is silent even when it sings because it does not speak--it cannot be reduced by explanation.
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Blessings, dear friends of silence, wherever you may live! Many are the facets of friendship. To befriend ourselves--body, mind, emotion, spirit--and to make friends with our Inner Being, from the dark areas of fear and illusion to the golden glow of our gifts and goodness, can be like cultivating a sacred space, a garden that reflects our lives.
Then, one's friends are like the flowers in our garden, each a treasure with its own unique blossoming. While to befriend strangers--the poor and disenfranchised, peoples of all nations, even those we view as enemies--the unjust and greedy who create war and inequity while ignoring the devastation left behind--can be a lifelong challenge, we must seek the source of discord in prayer and friendship with the Source of all life. And to befriend our Earth in all we do may be our greatest and most important challenge. For without a viable planet, we are left homeless.
Throughout our lives, as we befriend the Silence, we travel deeper into the light of our Inner Sacred Chapel and higher into the Light of Love. Whatever the form, friendship is a mutual gift that eternally warms and blesses our hearts and souls.
Ideally, friendships lead us into deeper communion with each other; those we love mirror the divine reality and so draw us closer to the One they reflect. In our humanness, however, we can forget that the friend is only a reflection of God and instead invest ultimate meaning in the relationship.
~ from CENTER TO CIRCUMFERENCE by Elizabeth-Anne Vanek
A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Silence is the property, the contemplative quality, the fruit of faith. Interior, mystical silence is a silence which stems from the intensity of loving faith ... the interior result of a heart that loves intensely. The presence in our hearts of a secret to be kept brings about a density which is interior silence. Communication of secrets is the sign which manifests and proves the friendship and total trust of a friend.
