Humility as a virtue has to do with knowing ourselves as human, as earthy, as the clay into which the divine breath has been breathed . . . It is to live the paradox of our blessed and broken natures, to know that matter matters, that flesh carries spirit, that life is discovered at the precise meeting place of the human and the divine. To practice humility is to live deeply into this truth, to lift oneself to the mountain top of prayer and aspiration and to embrace the lowly valley of our own abjection.
~ from "Little Things" by Wendy M. Wright in Weavings, Jan-Feb 2003
The silence of contemplation! Within each of us lie unknown gulfs of doubt, violence, secret distress ... as well as guilt, of things unacknowledged, so that gaping below our feet we sense an immense void. As we let divine love pray in us, trusting as a child, one day these gulfs will be inhabited. And, one day we shall discover that there has been a revolution in ourselves. With time, contemplation begets a happiness. And, that happiness is the drive behind our struggle for and with all people. It is courage, energy to take risks. It is overflowing gladness.
