Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.
~ THROUGH THE YEAR WITH THOMAS MERTON with thanks to C.Ritz
FDR left a handwritten speech in a drawer when he died (to deliver at the UN). He wrote, "If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace... The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith."
God did not grant me the gift of art. I had to express myself in my own life, in my thoughts, in my feelings, in my dreams and ideas, and in my love for all humanity and the Earth. I feel human, totally ecstatically human. I will help this planet, with all my abilities and love, to become what it was always meant to be: the planet of Love, a true miracle in the universe, inhabited by a happy, fulfilled, peaceful, loving humanity, thankful for the miraculous gift of life.
~ Robert Muller’s "Journal" in PROPHET by Douglas Gillies
Robert could not find the answer; his mind was driving him in circles. There was only one way to make it stop. Robert walked across the fields at dusk into the Forest of Welferding. His better self always seemed to come out in nature, perhaps because he had come from and would eventually die and go into nature. He felt the cool moisture on his skin, smelled the musky moss tucked between the stones along the brook, walking until he almost forgot why he'd come. The sky was filled with stars with no air raid sirens, no distant roaring of planes. In the forest Robert had caught a glimpse of what the world could be like without war, and it was good.
