People walk around sad because they don't know what to do with their future. You
have this minute right now. What are you doing with it? ...If you are filled with joy for
one minute, then you will know what to do with the next minute also. We are given
this minute, not tomorrow. Sadness is very much concerned with what I don't have,
and I really don't have tomorrow yet. The Truth is, I am always standing before
nothingness, because I am nonexistent yet for the next minute. I'm not here yet. Time
isn't there. The world isn't there. The world is here...right now!
Persons hungry for silence and for solitude seek a depth of contemplative experience in which one's usual assumptions about daily life are brought into question. The hunger for retreat carries with it a recognition that there is no other way out of many situations in which we find ourselves in the complexity of our lives. There is no other way than to take our messes into the darkness of silence before the Beloved... that by going into this silence, darkness, and helplessness can life be brought forth to sustain either ourselves or our world.
~ from "Come Apart and Rest Awhile" by Frances Irene Taber
