Our Quaker friends have much to teach us in the way of silence. The following quotations are taken from the little classic, A TESTAMENT OF DEVOTION, by Thomas R. Kelly:
"... the Living Christ within us is the initiator and we are the responders. God the Lover, the accuser, the revealer of light and darkness presses within us. 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock.' And all our apparent initiative is already a response, a testimonial to His secret presence and working within us.
"The basic response of the soul to the Light is internal adoration and joy, thanksgiving and worship, self-surrender and listening. The secret places of the heart cease to be our noisy workshop. They become a holy sanctuary of adoration and of self-oblation, where we are kept in perfect peace, if our minds be stayed on Him who had found us in the inward springs of our life ... In the Center of Creation all things are ours, and we are Christ's and Christ is God's."
Individuals live, as in a cell, in the narrow world of the words they utter -- every individual and every group. Words are no longer bridges linking the one to the other. Speech which is not heard only intensifies isolation and increases the babel of tongues. the clever ones profit by this. Less and less a helpful servant and more and more an instrument of propaganda, speech has become the vehicle for uneasy consciences. Words must be purified in a redemptive silence if they are to bear the message of peace ... For, a soul gathered in silent worship is never alone with God. It is always in communion with the soul of all other worshippers; its plunges it into that inward light which lightens every person."
~ from GOD IS SILENCE by Pierre Lacout with thanks to Donald and Lesley Holmes
In silence which is active, the
Inner Light begins to glow -- a
tiny spark.
By an attention full of love,
we enable the Inner Light to
blaze and illuminate our dwelling
and to make of our whole being
a source from which this Light
may shine out.
~ from GOD IS SILENCE by Pierre Lacout with thanks to Donald & Lesley Holmes
