The winter is cold, is cold.
All's spent in keeping warm.
Has joy been frozen, too?
I blow upon my hands
Stiff from the biting wind.
My heart beats slow, beats slow.
What has become of joy?
If joy's gone from my heart
Then it is closed to You
Who made it, gave it life...
Help me forget the cold
That grips the grasping world.
Let me stretch out my hands
To purifying fire,
Clutching fingers uncurled.
Look! Here is melting joy.
My heart beats once again.
Silence is the training ground for the art of listening. Engaging the silence may be one of the most important and productive things you can do for spiritual deepening.
I know for us compulsive, productive, extroverted types, this is a tall order. The bottom line is -- it's worth it. But we have to believe that it really matters. In our culture, silence and stillness have been equated with wasting time, doing nothing, being lazy. NOT TRUE. Think of it this way -- the silence of meditation is not the silence of a graveyard; it is the silence of a garden growing.
~ from OPENING YOURSELF TO THE GUIDANCE OF GOD by Linda Douty
