CONTEMPLATION ... from the Latin 'com' -together and 'templum' - temple. We contemplate that we might recognize ever more deeply who and Whose we are. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ... God's temple is holy and that temple are."
All the angels are amazed at humans, who through their holy works appear clothed with an incredibly beautiful garment. For the angel without the work of the flesh is simply praise; but the humans with their corporeal works are a glorification! Therefore the angels praise humans' work.
Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action ... we reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; he or she is free from the experience of hostility; she or he is a poet and most like an angel.
~ by Leonard Bernstein in "Religion and Ethics" by D.J. Green with thanks to Dorothea Queen
Angels before me, guide and direct me. Angels behind me, guard and protect me. Angels above me, keep watching over me. Angels beside me, care for and comfort me.
The angels can know us more intimately and love us when we sing, and they are not asking that we sound like the Philharmonic. They ask us simply to sing because we are harmonic. We are symphonic and in these ways we can connect with the angelic world. I think and feel that the angels wait for us at every given moment. If we alternate song and silence, consciously, with burning attention, every rounded tone carves out the possibility to bridge heaven and earth, to live the material half of the angel.
It is one of the goals of human beings to develop to the point where life is aligned to God in such a way that we behave like an angel in complete service to heaven.
~ from "The Sacred Face of Angels" by K. Martin-Kurl
A legend told by the Venerable Bede says that the poet Caedmon was once completely mute. It was a custom in his village to spend evenings taking turns reciting poetry. On these occasions, Caedmon, unable to speak, would steal away to nearby hills to escape. One evening while walking alone, an angel appeared and urged him to sing. Miraculously, he began to sing and went on the become a famous poet.
I see the angels as the creating presences within all things and all things as evidence of their presence. It is not, I believe, that all things are left on the doorstep of the earth by the angels without a trace of their source. Angels are the messengers who are also the message; they are the things of the world in their activity. Seen through spirit, all things are angel activities, and for that reason, the material world makes a spiritual difference. The work of angels takes place in the invisible; however, traces of angels always carry the mark of an authentic symbol, a uniting of what is above with what is below. As nature imitates the heavenly, so must we learn to do so consciously. The first discipline to be learned to achieve this capacity of working in harmony with the angels is meditation.
When I have gazed into a tidal pool
And seen the texture exquisite of stone,
Of life and plant, deep in the lucid cool,
It seems no greater wonder could be known.
Yet there's a cleanness I have known in dreams --
In those rare dreams that are like blessed wine --
A pure transparency wherein it seems
Is traced the form of the Creator's line.
Distinct and clear appears each one and thing,
And every grain of sand, as though I see
Through unseen water; and the angels sing
An unheard tone from heaven's melody.
So wonder grows to crystal-cut lucidity
Defining the great pattern of eternity.
Peace-filled and hope-filled prayer FROM THE SILENCE, dear friends. Though our hearts are heavy, tried by fire in so many areas of our world and individual lives, may we remember that out of the deep well-springs of Silence come healing waters, the still Voice of Love, inspirations to know how to respond in these difficult times, and the courage and strength to speak out and act with great integrity and compassion. May each of us pause in the Silence for a few moments throughout the day to send peace, love, and healing to our wounded world. How each of us lives and thinks makes a BIG difference!
As they talked together of The Way, the obstacles, the people, the signs ... you felt the great importance of the physicality of the quest. All of them stressed the power of silence: the need to be alone and find oneself in the silence. Moving alone, with silence as the single companion, seems a most profound means to register the natural balance of the world without, and world within.
There are times when we go on a long tramp with someone for whom we greatly care. There has been talk, but it has now faded, and we can stalk mile after mile together without a word but in perfect communication – each glad for the other's presence, each glad the other is alive, each grateful to be the other's friend, each feeling understood, each cherishing the other.
The purpose of silence is to unite the world of things with the world of spirit and thus give the fairest life in all the world to body, mind, and soul.
Silence is a privileged entry into the realm of God and into eternal life. There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence an begin to teach us the language of heaven. For, silence is a language that is infinitely deeper, more far-reaching, more understanding, more compassionate, and more eternal than any other language... There is nothing in the world that resembles God as much as silence.
~ by Meister Eckhardt with thanks to Craig Stevenson
True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God. It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved... This silence, then, will break forth in a charity that overflows in the service of the neighbor without counting the cost. Availability will become delightsome and easy, for in each person the soul will see the face of love. Hospitality will e deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart, and a loving heart is a hospice to the world.
Our culture is losing the art of silence, and with it the intrinsic human understanding and capacity for prayer. Silent dwellers, by creating spacious times of physical silence in their lives, slowly recover the human capacity to be with themselves in a caring gentle way. For, it is in silence and solitude that one learns – or regains – the human quality of being in God's presence always.
That which saves society is not that which can be seen upon the surface of things. It is not the power of industry, of war, of genius, of letter or arts. It is what touches its depths in a silence called the silence of good things. -- From a NY Times interview
Being silent means waiting, waiting for the Other to say something to us. Being silent before God means making room for God ... to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively. The time of silence is a time of responsibility, of blessedness, because it is a time when we live in the peace of God. "For God alone my soul in silence waits."
~ from MEDITATING ON THE WORD by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face us with the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~ by Henri J. M. Nouwen with thanks to Catherine Tiedel
Persons hungry for silence and for solitude seek a depth of contemplative experience in which one's usual assumptions about daily life are brought into question. The hunger for retreat carries with it a recognition that there is no other way out of many situations in which we find ourselves in the complexity of our lives. There is no other way than to take our messes into the darkness of silence before the Beloved... that by going into this silence, darkness, and helplessness can life be brought forth to sustain either ourselves or our world.
~ from "Come Apart and Rest Awhile" by Frances Irene Taber
Silence is our real nature... Holy and healing, there is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty and untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates. Silence is the absence of oneself. And the one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.
