Silence is its own reward: we do not look for any "sign" of God's presence, but as we grow in faith, we become increasingly aware of the wordless dialogue proceeding deep within us. This is the silent conversation with God that warms the heart and mobilizes the powers of the mind and spirit which we are all endowed, but which largely remain in abeyance in everyday life, until we are enabled to strike a deeper note of awareness. In other words, the effect of God's grace shows itself as we give of ourselves by what we are given, but, far from dwelling on it, we stride forward in resolution to give what we have to those around us ... There can be no effective journey on the path to the pearl of great price, until we are so inwardly posed that our attention and resolution remain in control even when the world is collapsing around us. For, real prayer -- the still point of our inner being -- never ceases ... The person who flows out from the still point is indeed an instrument of God's peace.
Finally, "love endures all things."... Everything that is tough and brittle shatters; everything that is cynical rots. The only way to endure is to forgive, over and over, to give back that openness and possibility for new beginning which is the very essence of love itself. And in such a way love comes full circle and can fully "sustain and make fruitful," and the cycle begins again, at a deeper place.
~ Cynthia Bourgeault in LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH
In the practice of conscious love you begin to
discover...a hope that is related not to outcome
but to a wellspring... a source of strength that
wells up from deep within you independent of all
outcomes... It is a hope that can never be taken
away from you because it is love itself working in
you, conferring the strength to stay present...
~ Cynthia Bourgeault, in LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH
Hope allows the energy of divine love to drive deep into the human condition—the theological condition usually referred to as “grace.” And at the same time, it allows the yearning, outstretched hands of creation to pierce the heart of God and call forth what can only be expressed in the dimension of the sensible. It is the root oneness and interconnectedness of all things in what Kabir Helminski calls “the electro-magnetic field of love.” And because this field does empirically exist, all those who have deeply loved—”to the root&rdq
~ from LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH by Cynthia Bourgeault
In the very last conversation we ever had, five days before his death, the subject came around to gratitude ...
"If you're quiet enough, as still as that mountain, you can hear in your heart a silent ‘thank you.' The whole universe, if you listen in your heart -- every blade of grass, each bird, each stone -- it is all ‘thank you.' We are born into ‘thank you' ... every step of the way is ‘thank you.' "
Rafe may not have heard the stars move. But I believe he was hearing "the Love that moves the stars and the sun."
~ from LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH by Cynthia Bourgeault
