I gave up trying to stop the tears. I abandoned my ruined defenses:
"I don't deserve any support from God after what I did." "Maybe not, but God's not interested in operating a brownie-point system – only in loving and forgiving those who are brave enough not to deny what they've done, no matter how terrible, brave enough to be truly sorry, brave enough to resolve to make a fresh start in serving Love as well as they possibly can."
I sat there with tears streaming down my face, and then just as I was thinking how utterly I was cut off from the Great Healer, that shining, mysterious figure I had tried so hard for so long to follow, Clare reached out across the table and briefly covered my clenched fists with her scarred hands.
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 has its own rhythms of darkness, dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a life of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.
~ S. Marie Baha in MEDITATIONS ON NATURE, MEDITATIONS ON SILENCE
It is not outer reality that silence reveals, but our own innerness. Silence is essentially a surrender to the holiness of the divine mystery – whether we use these words or not. An atheist, calming his or her spirit in the peace of silence, is irradiated by the same mystery, anonymous but transforming. We are to listen. To what? To silence.
Entering into silence is like stepping into cool clear water. The dust and debris are quietly washed away, and we are purified of our triviality. This cleansing takes place whether we are conscious of it or not: the very choice of silence, of desiring to be still, washes away the day's grime.
