The solitary life, being silent, clears away the smoke-screen of words that we lay down between our mind and things... Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being, between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world of silence, words to not separate us from the world nor from others, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.
~ from THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE by Thomas Merton
When the bird forgets it is afraid and opens its mouth to sing
Sometimes the bird turns away. Sometimes it does not open its mouth to sing. Sometimes it is afraid of the dark. But when it forgets it is afraid and opens its mouth to sing, it fills the world with light.
