Teach me to treat my death as an act of communion.
If my prayer life is strong and deeply rooted, then I will be better able to carry an equally heavy load of work, to bear the weight of our sisters' and brothers' pain and suffering, because it will not be me carrying the load, but God.
Our society has forgotten that all of life can be a work of art, even the most mundane-seeming tasks... There is great beauty in cleanliness and order and bringing it into being. Watering the plants is as necessary as cleaning the stove, and vice versa. All these tasks bespeak care for oneself and others, and appreciation of the opportunity to create a temenos -- a sanctuary, a safe and sacred place.
Perhaps the important matter is that we are who we are and where we are by a maze of reasons unknown to us. Our work is to make our way through our situation with faith and courage and whatever else it takes... In the end we are not only a mystery to one another but even to ourselves. The task is to live the mystery rather than unravel it.
Let us, like a painter, take time to stand back from our work, to be still, and thus to see what's what... True repose is standing back to survey the activities that fill our days.
Through intuitions received in the silence and holiness of your own inner sanctuary, you will get the guiding Light you need in your work.
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
The true prophetic message always calls us to stretch our arms out wide and embrace the whole world. In holy boldness we cover the earth with the grace and mercy of God. This is a great task, a noble task... Helmut Thielicke writes, "The globe itself lives and is upheld as by Atlas arms through the prayers of those who love has not grown cold. The world lives by these uplifted hands, and by nothing else!"
We saw our good life not as a model for others, but as a pilgrimage, for us, to the best way we could conceive of living. We felt a glad responsibility in joining with the stream of onward life, with the whole magnificent enterprise. This was living a life of affirmation, of contribution, of making every act and every day purposeful. To live the good life, we found, was to do the best we were capable of in any set of circumstances.
Doing work which has to be done over and over again helps us recognize the natural cycles of growth and decay, of birth and death, and thus become aware of the dynamic order of the universe. "Ordinary" work, as the root meaning of the term indicates, is work that is in harmony with the order we perceive in the natural environment.
O God, that at all times You may find me as You desire me and where You would have me be, that You may lay hold on me fully, both by the Within and the Without of myself, grant that I may never break the double thread of my life.
As we lose our vagueness about our self, our values, our life situation, we become available to the moment. It is there, in the particular, that we contact the creative self. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed, but we are not encountered. Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.
The universe is my way.
Love is my law.
Peace is my shelter.
Experience is my school.
Obstacle is my lesson.
Difficulty is my stimulant.
Pain is my warning.
Work is my blessing.
Balance is my attitude.
(The Voice of Silence is my guide.)
May you give me work till my life shall end
And life till my work is done.
We receive according to the emptiness of our hearts and hands.
When a young man in Uganda, a great soccer player, had his knee purposely blown out by someone in a soccer game, ending his professional career, he could have chosen bitterness. But instead, he began to help other young men who were aimless and without directions, who were on drugs, in gangs, doing nothing.
First he gave himself to building them up by teaching them to be soccer players. Once that relationship was established, he helped them develop skills and crafts, so that they could make a living and then become responsible fathers and community contributors...You could see how his own soul was nurtured by his desire to contribute, to focus outside himself.
Entering into silence is like stepping into cool clear water. The dust and debris are quietly washed away, and we are purified of our triviality. This cleansing takes place whether we are conscious of it or not: the very choice of silence, of desiring to be still, washes away the day's grime.
The journey to the self is hard work, not so much because of its periodic intensity, but because it demands superhuman honesty and a lot of attention... But the unconscious had spoken:
Can you really walk what you talk?
Why are you afraid to live your passion?
Can you live from your heart and not be afraid of who you are?
Can you create out of your flesh rather than your intellect?
Live what you know! There are no obstacles that can't be overcome on this journey!
Silence is an intriguing concept. Only silence enables us to hear. But silence is a very noisy thing. When we finally start to listen to our own garbled selves, as well as to others, we discover how full of static our hearts and minds really are. Silence, the time of coming to inner quiet, is the only chance we have of coming to inner quiet, is the only chance we have of coming to serenity.
Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Breath in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breath out and bring the cosmos back inside. Next, breathe up all the fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. Finally, blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth with that of your own, becoming the breath of Life itself.
There is an art to wandering. If I have a destination, a plan -- an objective -- I've lost the ability to find serendipity. I've become too focused, too single-minded. I am on a quest, not a ramble. I search for the Holy Grail of particularity and miss the Chalice freely offered, filled full and overflowing.
At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world: Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening ... you wait, you give your life's length to listening.
The work of art that emerges where we leave the place of interiority and reenter the visible world may be something tangible or it may take the form of a special kind of life, a life that is in itself an art. The sharing or the communication, in whatever form that may take, is the essence of the creative act. But the seed begins to germinate in aloneness and in silence.
Learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
O Loving Being! O Playful Creator! Love your way into the depths of my being today so that whatever I do will be a prayer, whether it be making bread or boiling water, visiting the sick or mowing the grass... May it all be an act of love and a feast of leisure. In all that I do, may I remember that I am a tabernacle of the Holy Mystery, a place where You dwell. May my moments of quiet listening at your feet lead me out again into the marketplace joyfully, gratefully, without complaining.
We cannot expect answers from God after only five minutes of silence... Meister Eckhart emphasized the importance of the listening heart that listens to God alone ... that God desires nothing more than a heart that detaches itself in silence from everything and turns and listens.
I found I had less and less to say,
until finally, I became silent,
and began to listen.
I discovered in the silence,
the voice of God.
To survive in the world, you need spiritual strength, you need solitude.
Go lightly, simply.
Too much seriousness clouds the soul.
Just go, and follow the flowing moment.
Try not to cling to any experience.
The depths of wonder open of themselves.
Perhaps the reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.
When there is stillness in the motion of our days, life's mysteries are revealed.
May you
Learn to be at home with yourself without a hand to hold.
Learn to endure isolation with only starts for friends.
For,
Happiness comes from understanding unity.
Love arrives on the footprints of your fear.
Beauty arrives from ashes of despair.
Solitude brings the clarity of still waters.
Wisdom completes the circle of your dreams.
So shall I sing my song. The melody winds through creation and forms the Name of the deepest Mystery and Being ... is unspeakable and as simple as the bee and the hummingbird and flower, is as constant and as changing as the cosmos. The Name is Now. With each moment the song is new. Each call of the Holy in and to me releases a surprise of melody I never knew I knew before. I didn't. Awareness. The Holy One makes all things new -- always, all ways, now. I must be attentive to my singing. I am new. I can always be a song fuller than could be imagined yesterday. I sing my life and I sing creation. Your Name is the song.
Old illustrations show God tuning the great musical instrument of creation... We all vibrate sympathetically like different octaves of the same tone, our human hearts pulsing in the same rhythms as those of the material and spiritual worlds... We know we are well on the way toward soul when we feel interconnected to the world and the people around us and when we live as much from the heart as from the head.
The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the Spirit.
All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song -- but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.
The discovery that God is as close to us as water in a sponge, or that God is in our body's veins and arteries as well as in the veins and arteries of our lives, is the fundamental music accompanying the entire dance of the spirit... Through every movement and every gestures, every turn and return, every leap forward and every silent rest, the music remains -- not only beneath and over and under and next to and within. In the trees and in the lakes, in the laughter and in the tears, in the animals and in the sun, in the soil, the fire, the air, the water. In the lure and the invitation ... the responding, the searching, the finding, the remembering. And in every one of us.
If prayer is the central core of life, then dance becomes prayer when we are expressing our relationship to God, to others, and to the world of matter and spirit, through movement originating from our deepest selves -- this same central point of worship. The movements of dance-prayer start from our deep center, flow outward like rivulets into the stream of life, and impart life everywhere. So dance can be a part of prayer, just as stillness can be a part of music. There is one root; all the rest, movement or stillness, silence or sound, is its expression. The closer the source, the purer the song.
Enter into the Silence, into the
Heart of Truth;
For herein lies the Great Mystery
where life is ever unfolding;
Herein the Divine Plan is made known,
the Plan all are invited to serve.
Listen for the music of the Holy Word
in the resounding Silence of
the universe.
May balance and harmony be your aim
as you are drawn into the
Heart of Love.
Though a world of increasing deafness shattered Beethoven's dreams of success in the outer world of society, it also caused him to turn within. And while human relationships came and went, Beethoven was discovering God, the eternal companion. This reorientation of his soul may well be the primary reason for the higher level of composition in his second period creations ... stemming from a fundamental need to express through music new and deeper worlds of soul-experience. Whereas before he composed for himself, in his second period, Beethoven was consciously striving to become the musical servant of God.
Life. It was in the water too. Each drop from the waterfall had its own intelligence and purpose. A melody of majestic beauty carried from the waterfall and filled the garden. The music came from the water itself, from its intelligence, and each drop produced its own tone and melody which mingled and interacted with every other strain and sound around it. The water was praising God for its life and joy ...
I know not how Thou singest ...
I ever listen in silent amazement.
The light of Thy music illumines the world.
The life breath of Thy music runs from sky to sky.
The holy stream of Thy music breaks through all stony obstacles
and rushes on.
My heart longs to join in Thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice.
I would speak but speech breaks not into song,
and I cry out baffled.
Ah, Thou has made my heart captive in the endless meshes of my music ...
Deep within your soul
there is a KNOWING PLACE
a sanctuary where gifts are nurtured.
Enter that sacred space.
Spend time there tending your gifts.
There in the chapel of your heart
you will become a gift to be given.