CALCUTTA: A beggar, half-conscious, is lying on a mat in a home for the dying. A nun is kneeling by his side, her delicate fingers wiping his forehead with a washcloth. She is a peasant whose eyes shine like the wings of a heron flying around the sun, a silence whose light soars through the darkness.
How can I describe the beggar's eyes as he summons all his strength to motion her to draw close? She obeys.
It takes the beggar a long time to whisper something in her ears: "I have lived . . . like an animal. Now I will die . . . like an angel." The beggar's final words.
God is the friend of silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grow in silence; see the stars, the moon, the sun, how they move in silence... The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within.
~ from SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL FOR GOD by Malcolm Muggeridge
A message was brought to me that a young woman who was dying had asked that I come visit her. She was fevered and emaciated; at first glance, a forbidding sight. Then I noticed her eyes -- huge and glowing, so incredibly beautiful I was entranced by them. All my embarrassment disappeared; all my searching about in my mind for some appropriate sanctimony became unnecessary. "What beautiful eyes!" I heard myself saying to her sister. She agreed saying that her sister had always had beautiful, glowing eyes. A silence fell upon us, and we were all three caught up in a wonderful joy. I knew, of course, what it was -- God's love enfolding us like lights from heaven.
~ from CONFESSIONS OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY PILGRIM by Malcolm Muggeridge
