I am to LISTEN. I am finding it a hard discipline: Listen to every word that is not said. Listen for silences. I have become insensitive to the power of words because I hear and see too many of them. I don't say to myself, "don't listen to words." I am already a past-master of that. I say, "listen to the silence." And I discover this: because silence seems empty of content I cannot place myself in relation to it, and therefore, I cannot place myself outside it. It is a world I enter, not a world I observe. Silent people bear this out: they seem to carry a world with them, while the unsilent always seem to be scurrying in search of one.
~ from TAKE NOTHING FOR THE JOURNEY by Donagh O'Shea
This rock has seen many storms. Here it stands exposed to the elements, covered with the scars of its past. But one thing that always gave me comfort in coming here—it has not crumbled. It is still standing at the water’s edge, facing the wind and the sea and whatever the future will bring...Our hearts are like this rock. They will not crumble as long as we live and as long as we love.
