...Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies.
Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears.
Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surround us...
The world is big, and wide, and wild and wonderful and wicked,
and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable and full of meaning.
Oremus.
Let us pray.
~ Pádraig Ó Tuama, from "Oremus," in DAILY PRAYER WITH THE CORRYMEELA COMMUNITY
To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so has its own rhythms of darkness, dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a life of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.
~ S. Marie Baha in MEDITATIONS ON NATURE, MEDITATIONS ON SILENCE
