In order to make it easier to keep your thoughts continually on God in accordance with your wish and your need, this is what you can do. First, love solitude and silence, which greatly help the spirit within, and sacred meditation. Second, choose to read books that are sound spiritually. Pause frequently, trying to appreciate rather than understand or remember them. And third, throughout the day turn to God in prayer about all that takes place... All will be well in time.
~ from THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF JEAN-PIERRE de CAUSSADE with thanks to Joyce Lang
Listening is being silent with another person in an active way. It is silently bearing with another person. Some people are silent, but they are not open and active. They are either asleep or dead within themselves. The true listener is one who is quiet and yet sensitive toward another person, open and active, receptive and alive. Listening is participating in another life in a most creative and powerful way. It is neither coercive nor pushy. Rather, it is bearing one another's burdens.
~ from SET YOUR HEART ON THE GREATEST GIFT by Morton Kelsey
