If you creep out down to the river in the light of a
full moon, you'll see her there, Old Crane Woman.
She'll be standing on one leg, still as can be, and
you'll know her by her frayed grey and white dress
and her long, thin arms with the sharp, sticking-out
elbows. She'll be staring into the river, for Old
Crane Woman knows that inspiration comes always
at the side of the water, there on the edge, in that
troubling threshold place between one element and
another.
We need quiet time in the presence of God. Although we want to make all our time time for God, we will never succeed if we do not reserve a specific and consistent amount of time to listen in the Silence. This asks for much discipline and risk-taking, because we often have something more urgent to do and "just sitting there" and "doing nothing" may disturb us more than it helps. But there is no way around this. Being useless and silent in the presence of God belongs to the core of all prayer. In the beginning, we often hear our own unruly inner noises more loudly than God's voice. This is at times very hard to tolerate. But slowly, very slowly, we discover that the silent time makes us quiet and deepens our awareness of ourselves and God. Then, very soon, we start to miss these moments when we are deprived of them, and before we are fully aware of it, an inner momentum has developed that draws us more and more into silence and closer to that still point where God speaks to us.
~ from SEEDS OF HOPE: A HENRI NOUWEN READER ed. Robert Durback
