Why has this Frenchman from France written his book in the United States to present to his friends today? Because loving the country and wanting to show his gratitude, he could find no better way of expressing it than in these two truths, intimately known to him [Jacques is blind] and reaching beyond all boundaries.
The first of these is that joy does not come from outside, for whatever happens to us it is within. The second truth is that light does not come to us from without; Light is in us, even if we have no eyes.
I live in unfamiliar places:
The unknowing of empty spaces
Between what was and what is yet to be.
It is the hardest earthly place for me
To dwell within, pause, absolutely still.
Knowing only God and love can fill
The wanting, one drop at a time.
It's only through the heart's abiding
That Wisdom might be found hiding
In the shadows of such Sacred Pause.
I offer up what was to mourn in empty spaces,
Let go of worn embraces
So what is yet to be
May somehow birth in me.
Prayerful awareness can lead us into solitude, which is where God calls us. It is from within this solitude we encounter the indwelling God. We could say that by fully and fearlessly embracing our solitude before God that we are enabled to become fully and fearlessly present to others. If our being in God is real, we may become as a mountainside shelter within which others may feel encouraged to continue their own dialogue with the Holy One. Thus, as we are in God, we become a place for others to be in God.
However I may be asked to be with a person, always I am tending to the birth of the sacred, to the mystery -- to the inbreaking of God in this time and space in this person's life. That experience is always new, always precious -- like any birth.
