We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose.
~ Maya Angelou from an interview in Psychology Today, February 2009
One of the reasons why communication in general in our society is so shallow and boring is that it does not grow out of silence and solitude. Consequently there is no communion. ...Communication could be a kind of communion if indeed we were a more silent and solitary people. Where we live with God alone in silence, then when we come out of that holy, sacred space, we are deepened and not only ready but longing to share with others the deeper dimensions of life.
Let us, like a painter, take time to stand back from our work, to be still, and thus to see what's what... True repose is standing back to survey the activities that fill our days.
Contemplation is the central human act that puts us perceptively and lovingly in touch with the innermost reality of everything because it is a simple intuition of the truth.
