Those in love have a secret. Their gestures and voices and eyes communicate it. They rush to "wake the dawn" and warn the world of love's peculiar logic. They speak a new language and walk with new grace. They learn the dance of life, listening and opening, the rhythm of intimacy and ecstasy. They reverberate with the cosmos as it breathes in unison and blends the sources of silence and sound.
~ from EVERY BUSH IS BURNING: A SPIRITUALITY FOR OUR TIMES by Joan Puls, OSF
Silence wells up from an emptiness within us, but it is an emptiness freely and fully
accepted...A moment comes when silence alone can express the extraordinary richness in our heart. Such a silence enfolds a person gently and powerfully and always comes from within. It establishes a zone of peace and quiet around the one who is silent, where God can be irresistibly felt as present.
~ André Loup in THE WAY OF SIMPLICITY by Esther deWaal
The Word must be heard in the silence of the heart, the place in which it can be welcomed and given space so that it may become creative. From earliest times the advice given to those who wanted to learn the monastic way was always "to return to your own heart." This is the interior space for which there are so many different concepts: the inner cloister, the poustinia, the cave of the heart. It is simply "the place of God in us" which each of us will understand in a unique and mysterious way.
~ from THE WAY OF SIMPLICITY by Esther de Waal thanks to G. Grissom
