In the summer while at the cottage, I spend my mornings in silence by the lily pond. I slowly become aware of the extreme discipline of stabilizing myself in the void that is full. When I am able to surrender to the silent void, I dissolve into a dance of love. And the beauty, the beauty of the experience, causes me to weep -- to weep in reverence for what it is, for what I am, for what all life is. The beauty of the reality of love existing within all forms of life softens me into a gentleness that cannot force itself into action. Instead I discover a beautiful quality living within me that radiates strength and direction ... By surrendering to the process I find I am living in a state of grace. I start to hear the forms of life around me as sounds, sounds not heard by my ears but known by the silence. I know I can't take this experience into the world, but I can return to this place and refocus in the love that I want to live in the world.
~ from LEAVING MY FATHER'S HOUSE by Marion Woodman
If the heart of prayer is listening, what is it we listen to when we pray? The obvious answer is God's voice, yet great care is needed lest we presume the divine voice is like an ordinary human one. The essence of God's voice is silence...To be silent is to empty oneself of the din of transitory distractions so that one becomes fully receptive to the silence that always and everywhere underlies them. The silence thus cultivated is not a void so much as an expectant readiness, a sensitive receptivity, to the stillness hidden in the noise of daily life.
~ from SPIRITUALTY OF THE HANDMAID by Kerry Walters
In order to listen to God's silence we must escape the din of distractions that normally deafen us to it. Being deafened to the silence within as well as the silence without is corrosive to God-hearing. To be silent is to so empty oneself of the din of transitory distractions that one becomes fully receptive to the silence that always and everywhere underlies them. Silence is that state of spiritual sensitivity in which seekers make themselves available to the silence of God's voice.
~ from SPIRITUALITY OF THE HANDMAID, by Kerry Walters
