The soul fills the body, as God fills the world. The soul bears the body, as God bears the world. The soul outlasts the body, as God outlasts the world. The soul is one in the body, as God is One in the world. The soul sees and is not seen, as God is seen and is not seen. The sould is pure in the body, as God is pure in the world.
The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.
When Magdalena entered the room the next time, Inigo asked her for paper and ink. He had found the formula and did not want it to slip from his mind.
"In those who proceed from good to better, the good spirit touches such a soul gently and softly as when water drops upon a sponge, and the evil spirit strikes it sharply and noisily, causing disquiet as when water drops upon a stone."
Each of us is a separate and sacred being, a being made most real when it weaves itself into the pattern of all Being. The harmony of all Being includes each of us within it, and its health requires our individual effort. So we live; each of us a needed part of the Universal Soul -- each in all, and all in each, one pattern, one truth, one body.
Like justness in a judge's decision, or beauty in a painting, soul is a quality of absoluteness in something relative. Understood profoundly, people are connected to the holiness of the world in such a way that they reveal a dimension of holiness in themselves, a dimension of depth that is absolute.
In 2000, while I was in the hospital for by-pass surgery, an old man called out for help each night. All the prayers for his comfort and quiet seemed to float away. One night I found myself saying,
"Old man, you are not going to be miserable this night. My soul is coming over and our souls are going out dancing!"
I don't have a rational explantion, I only know he was quiet that night, my soul uplifted. I believe our souls danced that night. The next day the old man died. Such is the power of Spirit in our lives.
~ in a letter form Jacqueline White, a Friend of Silence
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Peace and grace to you, dear friends! How we work, what we choose to do for our livelihood, what our service renders for our own well-being, for that of others and society, is deeply connected to our deep inner values: our very being. To spend time in silence and in prayer reflecting on our work in the world can bring insights, open the door to new possibilities, change our way of envisioning work. Ultimately, may our work be or become what we love and enable us to co-create in the great Plan of Love for Earth: our home.
If we add up all the time we have spent in our life getting things over with, it may turn out to be half our lives. The monastic attitude is to begin deliberately and to do anything we do with an even, stately pace and with wholehearted attention. This is how master artisans, weavers, experienced farmers, and other sage laborers work. That way even difficult tasks can be done leisurely ande with joy, for their own sake. And then they become life-giving.... We pray that God may guide our actions. When we do our work in this way, then everything becomes a prayer
So long as space remains, So long as sentient beings remain, I will remain, In order to help, in order to server, In order to make my own contribution.
A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God. A spirituality of work puts us in touch with our own creativity ... draws us out of ourselves and, at the same time, makes us more of what we are meant to be. A spirituality of work immerses me in the search for human community. I finally come to know that my work is God's work, unfinished by God because God meant it to be finished by me.
The song that the world sings through us is to be sung into others:
Go into the world, go build cities, go discover cultures; go spread love, go give, go make magnificence, get and give light, save and join and piece together to form a whole. Gather the broken pieces, connect them; these are the things we have to work with.
Make like a map, a world where all things are linked together and murmur through each other -- a singing, a round, strong, clear song of total meaning, a language within language, responding each to each forever in the memory of each individual.
As we live, we are transmitters of life. And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us ... And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work, life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready and we ripple with life through the days.
Give, and it shall be given unto you is still the truth about life ... It means kindling the life-quality where it was not, Even if it's only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.
Wend your way through the corridors of time, not as passengers on a free ride watching the seasons pass; Rather, steady mindfulness quickens the spirit, awakens the soul, and opens the Inner Gate that leads to the great Work so needed in these times. Discover the joy of helping humanity to reverence all Creation, of offering your healing hands in the restoration of planet Earth. Discernment and discipline will cut through impediments to action.
Fr. Joe's retort in answser to some enthusiastic piety of mine about the sanctity of community and its high purpose: "Good gracious -- we're not silly old monks mumbling prayers all day. We've got a job to do!" I realized how like him this was, how down-to-earth encapsulating his generous view of the ordinary. Every word he spoke was drawn from a deep well of generosity. He hade built it up over decades of contemplating people and loving them all without reserve. His gentle power spring from a straightforward assessment of the world and his job in it. That job was love.
Each pereson, no matter how old, has an important work to do. This good work not only accomplishes something needed in the world, but completes something in us. When it is finished a new work emerges that will help us make green a desert place, as well as to scale another mountain in ourselves. The work we do in the world, when it is a true vocation, always will correspond in some mysterious way in the work that goes on within us.
Service is one of the two main levers of evolution: one is meditation, the other is service. Service, of whatever kind, gradually distances you from yourself. As your service grows, expands outwards from yourself, you do not lose touch with yourself but you become less and less concerned with your own ego, your personality expression. Service is the impulse of the soul, the carying out of soul purpose.
How can we prepare for the most important years of our lives, the latter years, by thinking that we are going to shut down our engines? What have we done by limiting those persons who have the most to offer our society?
The eastern cultures know the secret. Elder members of society have mujch wisdom to share. The truth is that as one approaches the years beyond seventy, the veils of heaven are particularly open to the soul. This means that the individual has the opportunity to be of special service to humanity and can begin his or her most important work:
Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. She goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.
Pleasure is one thing; wisdom is another. The first leads to sorrow, though pleasant at the time. The latter, though at first unpleasant, leads to lasting joy.
Wisdom has no limitations and embraces the profound as well as the simple. She can be found in the huts of the poor and in the palaces, in workshops and in lecture halls. She deals with the most profound speculations on the creation of the world and the very nature of God and even with the inability of men and women to come up with adequate answers to these great mysteries. Wisdom tells us to be attentive to her and to incline our ears to her understanding.
