A right turn towards the lake instead of the usual left that leads to home. Down a short gravel road, park, a five-minute walk through bare trees and dried leaves to the water’s edge. Azure sky, blue water, red dirt. The piercing golden sun hovers over the horizon. Waves […]
Silence is not the absence of sound; it is the freedom to listen to God.
I was cutting through the outpatient entrance at the hospital today a I made my way through the maze of hallways from a doctor’s appointment in the adjacent medical building. Subtlety, time began to slow. The ticks of the second hand on my watch began moving slower and slower. I eased into noticing much of […]
You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or in the silence after lightning before it says its names - and then the clouds’ wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, […]
Asking people to pray is like telling the wind to blow the ear to listen the eye to see We cannot not pray anymore than not be once given the gift of existence We can only shut it out or deny it Prayer is simply the conscious dimension of being when it opens out to […]
O Lord Jesus, Your words to your Father were born out of your silence. Lead me into this silence, so that my words may be spoken in your name and thus be fruitful. It is so hard to be silent, silent with my mouth, but even more, silent with my heart. There is so much […]
Abba Anthony said: Whoever sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: those of hearing, speaking, and seeing. Then there is only one war left in which to fight, and that is the battle for your own heart. — Sayings of the Desert Fathers First, to begin even to approach an awareness […]
love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun more last than star — E.E. Cummings
Silence is— the song of God, singing to every one and every thing to be, being, to be witness, with-ness, to each other, and to be with God.
In a narrative essay titled “Teaching a Stone to Talk” (found in the book by the same name), the author Annie DIllard describes an eccentric man trying to teach a stone how to talk. Several times a day, he removes his stone from the shelf, a dark gray, “palm-sized oval beach cobble”, and proceeds with […]
From Br. Joseph — This is the sixth reflection on seven signposts for the season of Lent (and for all seasons). Pray always. Prays always; if necessary, use words. Our words in prayer are very important, be them words of gratitude or of amazement, words for forgiveness, or words of need for others or for […]
Near the end of the film Into Great Silence (technically it is a film, but it is something more), there is an interview with an old, blind monk. The years of solitude do not wear heavy on him. He is truly happy, and peace envelopes him, coming to you even through the camera lens. His […]
If a tree falls, it makes a lot of noise; but if a thousand flowers bloom, it happens in the greatest of silence. — Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Something to ponder this Christmas day… Wake me up Father so that I won’t miss you. Purify my heart so that I may see You, so that […]
Leave me here freely all alone, In cell were sunlight never shone, Should no one ever speak to me, This golden silence sets me free! — Blessed Titus Brandsma, portion of poem written in Dachau
Reality is flowing. This does not mean that everything moves, changes, becomes. Science and common experience tell us that. It means that movement, change, becoming is everything that there is. There is nothing else; everything is movement, is change. The time that we ordinarily think about is not real time, but a picture of space. […]
Silence asserts not. It is simple nothingness Around every sound. Like God, silence waits To be heard among the thoughts. It never changes. Not to soothe with balm, Silence calls to stimulate, To notice no-thing. The song of silence Teaches one to listen, and Imbues with Presence.