The venerated Chinese teacher Lin-chi, who died in the year 866, once interrupted the silence with a shout that was said to have nearly cracked the universe.... Breaking the silence can sometimes be a shortcut to cracking open the mysteries of the universe. But for now, I'm quite content to sit here quietly. There is only the infrequent shout of a distant ocean wave to rise above the regulated whisper of my own breathing. Soon, even these sounds fade.
God is so free and so marvelous {doing} wonders where people despair... tak{ing} what is little
and lowly and mak{ing} it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves
the lowly... God marches right in {and} chooses people as... instruments and performs...
wonders where one would least expect them.
Blessing means to lay the hand upon the shoulder and say, "Despite everything you belong to God." That is how we deal with the world that inflicts so much suffering upon us. We don't give up, reject or despise it; we call it to love; we give it hope, we lay our hand upon it and receive God's blessing in joy and in sorrow. We who have ourselves been blessed can do no other than pass on this blessing...to be a blessing wherever we are. Only by the impossible can the world be renewed and God's blessing is the impossible.
~ from MY SOUL FINDS REST: REFLECTIONS ON THE PSALMS by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Let candles burn, both warm and bright, Which to our darkness Thou has brought, When we are wrapped in silence most profound, May we hear that song most fully raised From all the Unseen World that lies around And Thou art by all Thy children praised.
Night and morning, You are by us faithfully And surely at each newborn day.
Our homes will be very quiet at this time. But I have often found that the quieter my surroundings, the more vividly I sense my connection with you all. It's as if, in solitude, the soul develops organs of which we're hardly aware in everyday life.
~ from LOVE LETTERS FROM CELL 92 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with thanks to Jane Storck
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
