As we begin the second year of this little newsletter, please know of the joy and gratitude received and given through our mutual sharing and prayer. That our "membership" almost quadrupled is perhaps an indication of how many hidden contemplatives live and work in our busy and noisy world. How crucial our Silence is for the balance and transformation of our planet!
In the November issue, having asked if anyone knew of THE ROLL, what a delight to discover a complementary group offering an in-depth, quarterly newsletter. Schola Contemplationis, dedicated to global spirituality, is a networking community for contemplatives in the world, at home and in monasteries.
"This is a new, yet genuine, way of 'living together', appropriate to the twentieth century, in which communication and interdependence enable us to dwell in the 'global village.' Schola (like Friends of Silence) seeks to provide a medium through which contemplatives who find themselves in need of support and companionship can minister to one another."
Prayer has a life of its own. If we could define it today, that definition would have moved and changed by tomorrow. Prayer is a living relationship that can never be pinned down and analyzed; prayer is a breath of the soul that has passed before we can seize hold of it; prayer is a reaching out of all that is deepest within us towards all that lies infinitely beyond and around us.
Prayer invites us to become aware of the living interaction between the transparent God, who will remain always beyond all we can think or imagine, and the immanent God, who abides deep in our heart. As we become aware of this sacred encounter, we become, ourselves, a place where God's dream is becoming incarnate in our own personal life. We enter into a personal and intimate relationship with the Author of our being.