The secret of creating peace is that when you listen to other people you have only one purpose: to offer them an opportunity to open their hearts. If you can keep that awareness and compassion alive in you, then you can sit and listen for an hour even if the other person expresses wrong perceptions, condemnation, and bitterness. You can continue to listen because you are protected by the nectar of compassion in your own heart. Keeping your awareness keeps you safe in your own peace.
Dark and cold we may be, but this Is no winter now: the frozen misery Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move: The thunder is the thundering of the floes, The thaw, the flood, the upstart spring. Thank God our time is now when wrong Comes up to face us everywhere, Never to leave us til we take The longest stride of soul we ever took. Affairs are now soul-size. The enterprise Is exploration into God.
~ from "A Sleep of Prisoners" in SELECTED PLAYS by Christopher Fry
