Here "Grace upon grace" is visible! "Gratitude upon gratitude" overcomes me. These are tears of joy that well up in me now. How grateful I am for everything, grateful for the gratitude! Forty days -- what wisdom lies in the exact measure of this time interval. Forty days, no more, no less! I am so grateful! I feel flooded with gentleness, acceptance, confidence, inner peace. May the veils never close again!
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 it has its own rhythms of darkness, of dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a live of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.