Gardening can provide an opportunity to slow down, be still, breathe, and connect with
another form of life. For me, it is an experience of communion; I become one with this
precious life in my garden and it heightens my experience of love in the world. And
that is what spirituality is all about: growing in love.
At the heart of ministry is the Silence... Contemplating words or images or imaginings is at least one step removed from the direct experience of God. For as Alan Watts liked to say, "If you find a thousand names for God you will not have God, you will only have a list of names." To contemplate God rather than images about God one can only go humbly, empty of thought and self, into the presence of God -- into the Silence. It is out of the Silence that we love, act, speak if we do so with true spiritual integrity.
