Contemplation is the central human act that puts us perceptively and lovingly in touch with the innermost reality of everything because it is a simple intuition of the truth.
Contemplation is the central human act that puts us perceptively and lovingly in touch with the innermost reality of everything because it is a simple intuition of the truth.
The silence of contemplation! Within each of us lie unknown gulfs of doubt, violence, secret distress ... as well as guilt, of things unacknowledged, so that gaping below our feet we sense an immense void. As we let divine love pray in us, trusting as a child, one day these gulfs will be inhabited. And, one day we shall discover that there has been a revolution in ourselves. With time, contemplation begets a happiness. And, that happiness is the drive behind our struggle for and with all people. It is courage, energy to take risks. It is overflowing gladness.
I cried to God,
I beat upon the door
Until my knuckles bled;
God gave me no answer, gave no sign.
"There is no God," I sad.
I stopped my clamor
And lay spent,
A channel at ebb tide,
And slowly in the silence
The door swung wide.
The truth of the hermitage comes down to paradoxes. It empties us so we may be filled; its simplicity is a luxury, and we go there seeking solitude so we can better serve God's people ... Whether we serve as parents, as pastors, as missionaries, as teachers, as peace-makers -- there is a monk in all of us. To get in touch with the silence of God is necessary for everyone. The hermitage allows people to get in touch with that silence. That does not mean the touch only happens here. But it can be refreshed here. It can be strengthened.
The life of prayer is a journey with God as well as toward God, a journey in which prayer becomes for those who pursue it as natural as breathing. The first big step is to cease talking TO God and start listening FOR God. And that requires silence. Silence is the language God speaks, and everything else is a translation. "As long as you know you are praying, you are not praying properly", says Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. When everything we do is prayer, the fruit is an increase in love, patience and compassion for others, leaving behind the unmistakable taste of holiness.
In some religions, prayer is undertaken, not with the intention of influencing a deity, nor with any hope of prayers being directly answered, but in order to produce a harmonious state of mind. Prayer and meditation facilitate integration by allowing time for previously unrelated thoughts and feelings to interact. Being able to get in touch with one's deepest thoughts and feelings, and providing time for them to regroup themselves into new formations and combinations, are important aspects of the creative process, as well as a way of relieving tension and promoting mental health ... Human beings easily become alienated from their own deepest needs and feelings. Learning, thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one's own inner world are all facilitated by solitude.
Blessed are You, Heart of my heart!
for You heed the cry of my spirit.
You are my strength and my protection;
into your hands I commend my soul.
My heart leaps as You come to my aid,
and my lament becomes
a song of exultation,
a shout of praise to You,
O my Comforter!
May the blessed light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine on you and warm your heart until it glows like a fire, so that a stranger may come and warm himself at it, and also a friend. May God always bless you, love you and keep you.
Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others; the core, the inner spring can best be refound through solitude.
I have found a loving, caring presence as I have listened to my dreams, listened to the silence in the middle of the night and meditated on scripture. In my deepest experience of worship and Eucharist, and in my time of quiet companionship with God, I have met a Divine Lover. I find this Loving One is always there desiring to draw me closer to Love. Again and again, I hear gentle suggestions, when I listen in the midst of troubles, that my best way through them is by practicing unconditional love.
"Compassion not only helps us co-operate with the movement of Christ's love, it also fulfils us by increasing our capacity to relate to others without which there is no maturity ... The spark in the soul draws a person deeper into the love of the Creator and of the world in a process of mutual enabling. It is impossible to love others in this way while nourishing prejudice, fear and grievances." Compassion invites us to times of silence and to radical trust ... "God, I trust in your sustaining love and believe that just as You give me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it."
If your spirit is not fit to see the Beloved, neither will your heart be a bright mirror, fit to reflect love. It is true that no eye is able to contemplate and marvel at Love's beauty, nor is it capable of understanding; one can no feel toward the Beloved as one feels toward the beauty of this world. But by abounding Grace, we have been given a mirror to reflect the Beloved, and this mirror is the heart. Look into your heart and there you will see Love's image.
Blessed are the consistent in heart; they shall contemplate the one.
Healthy are those whose passion is electrified by deep, abiding purpose; they shall regard the power that moves and shows itself in all things.
Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere.
Resisting corruption are those whose natural reaction is sympathy and friendship; they shall be illuminated by a flash of lightning: the Source of the soul's movement in all creatures.
In the core of the human soul there is a central silence. It is here that God enters into the soul. A person finds 'unity and blessing in that little spark in the soul, which neither space nor time touches.' Here is to be found a light that 'wants to penetrate the simple core, the still desert ... to get into the secret, to which no one is privy, where it is satisfied by a light whose unity is greater than it's own. This core is a simple stillness...
The Beloved listens
as I dovetail words
into walls
and walk in winter landscapes.
None of the alien, snowbanked roads
lead home. Even as I speak,
the shadows shift
across the stones
I have tried
to mortar into place.
The beloved listens
and weaves willow silences
into my words.
The quietness of Love
builds me a better harbor
than words ever could,
a place from which to sail,
a place to remember
on the map I navigate by,
where the heart of the compass rose is home.
God truly wishes all to eat and drink deeply of Infinite Love. Alas, how few seek ardently and perseveringly to move beyond desiring only the things of this world that cannot satisfy the burning longing that has been placed in all human hearts to possess God's everlasting Love! ... It is possible for the contemplative to become so centered in the heart with the presence of the indwelling Christ that the thought and presence of the Beloved are always somewhere close to waking consciousness, even in sleep. Christ is operating, even in sleep, in dreams and in delicate movements of the heart, so that it can be said that such a contemplative never loses awareness of Love's presence, never stops "listening" to Love's voice.
Oh how our values fail us!
Beauty doesn't come from a package.
It shines as a whole.
Love doesn't come from a greeting card.
It dwells in the heart, radiating the soul.
May the light of love be shining
deep within your spirit
May the torch of mercy clear the path
and show the way
May the horn of plenty sound
so everyone can hear it
May the light of love be with you every day.
Somehow, I must sit to listen.
Standing implies a readiness for action, for the executing of the will.
To hear You I must sit down and calm down.
The magpie mind chatters.
It doesn't know about stopping.
How helpless I feel in its automatic firing, its busy babbling.
It is impossible to hear You as long as I am full of sound.
I turn this helpless prayer toward You.
... slowly unknowing everything, becoming dark,
becoming yielding ... just sitting.
When you know, without a shadow of doubt, that the spirit of God is within you, for you have actually experienced the Presence in the silence of your heart, then you have truly grown in being. In your daily life you become a proof of this knowledge -- a witness to others by what you are. A witness in a court testifies to what has been seen, and the strength of that evidence helps to clarify the truth of the case. So, as one who knows love, you convince those with whom you come into contact, of some indefinable quality which seems to give you the ability to flow with life with a glowing radiation. Others derive strength from your strength, and their fear is dispersed -- even if only momentarily -- by your peace, your understanding of what they are going through, and by your sincere concern. What you ARE, far more than what you say or do, will be the witness of your faith.
Gentle me,
Holy One,
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go
of heavy expectancies,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery.
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is You.
God ... secretly and quietly ... inserts in the soul loving wisdom and knowledge.
Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware, that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that source.
Eternal life is a gift of God. It is through God's love that we have eternal life, through the great love that God has for creation. And through love, all individuals have the freedom to choose whether to seek or to separate themselves from love ... Do not look to another for your connection to God. This is available to you through your mind and heart. In the silence, you will be able to hear with your mind love's voice guide you; with your heart you will feel God's great love. It is the responsibility of each individual to seek their own connection to God ... When you find that you are truly connected to God from within, then you will eliminate fear, hostility and such. Not by power or might, but by the Word of God, by taking into your life the love of God and the word of God. By accepting the goodness of God, you move toward wholeness and holiness.
A quiet settles on the hills
Augmented by the birds,
Everything is softer --
A time for fewer words.
A time best spent listening
To the voices of the land,
How softly winter guides us
With her wondrous hand.
May happiness, like the beauty of nature surround you in the coming year.
Children do not yet "know" enough to resist the force that governs and guides them from one goodness to the next. They haven't yet been fooled by their senses into practicing the impractical practice of trying to run their own lives and prove themselves in relation to others. So they show us what the scriptures teach -- that there is something we can trust. Our superficial perspective fools us all into seeking security by hanging on to certain interpersonal conditions and experiences in what is, after all, an exploding universe of divine self-revelation. This places us in opposition to the current of life and prevents us from increasingly seeing and expressing the unfolding good of God. Yet in the silence, we too can learn to go with and be carried along by the flow -- from one liberating revelation of the great eternal One to the next.
The great solitaries always surprise us by their acute understanding of life. Prayer of positive, creative quality needs a background of silence, we need not hope to know the power of prayer
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given.
So God imparts to human hearts
The wonders of Love's heaven.
In the center of the city, I am that child that screams in the tenement, the infant that cries in the night holding out its arms to be comforted. I am the young man and woman searching for their way. I am the weary, the wounded, the cold and hungry asking, "why?" ... the old and all who know pain and are acquainted with grief. The loved, the unloved, the abandoned, the lonely and the homeless ... I am all who thirst for the Way. I am child of God, of the Mysterious One, the Immutable, and a child of timeless time. I have no color and speak no language ... and yet, pushed down, way down to the bottom of the Cave to touch the Divine Flame, I become part of everyone and everyone is part of me. The way below and the way above is lit with the golden match of love. Thanks be to the name that cannot be named.
... written by Arpie Shelton after being in a coma. She wrote: "I could see as if for the very first time ever."
I sought of old the womb of a woman so that I might become a human being. Now I seek a soul by means of which I can bring my love to all people. I will take your poverty and I will fill it to the limit. Believe. Love. Trust. Let yourself be carried by my waves, by my winds. You will find me again in your soul, simple and humble, a Child.
The divine life enkindled in the soul is the Light that has come into the darkness; it is the miracle of the holy night.
The new or divine begetting is just as real as the first begetting in the mother's womb. The child of God is forever being born.
I am your reed, sweet shepherd, glad to be.
Now, if you will, breathe out your joy in me
And make bright song.
Or fill me with the soft moan of your love
When your delight has failed to call or move
The flock from wrong.
Make children's songs, or any songs, to fill
Your reed with breath of life;
But at your will, lay down the flute,
And take repose, while music infinite
Is silence in your heart; and laid on it
Your reed is mute.
When you reach the state of contemplation, live contemplation, you are finally at peace, like a child on its mother's breast: "My soul is tranquil and quiet like a child in its mother's arms." (Psalm 131:2)
Magnetized by God's love, the rocket of your soul, like an astronaut's space-craft, has broken the sound-barrier (no longer needs a lot of words to explain itself), snapped the thread of gravity which held it down to itself (No longer needs meditation) and gone into orbit like a tiny planet around God's sun.
The first proof that you have gone into orbit round God is that you no longer feel that you are the centre of the universe -- which is the real nature of sin -- but feel and vividly understand that God is the centre of everything. This might seem easy, but ... how much effort goes into reaching this understanding!
Now at last God bears you, leads you by "ways which are not our ways", draws you into the whirlpool of charity, prepares you for an ever deeper union with the Beloved, for that eternal possession of love which is the goal of our human-divine destiny.
The soul in orbit round God begins to realize that there is another stability than the kind known and experienced on earth, another fullness, another dimension. Above all, another "peace”.
Old traditions used to say that wisdom consists in the knowledge of the Word. Give us this wisdom to be able to listen, to accept, to receive, to practice the hospitality of the words, paying attention, reacting consequently, being struck, touched, or caressed by the words that come to us. And let us also learn, in turn, to speak the right words, to affirm people who speak in a life-giving way, to recreate ourselves with our own words, because each of them sprouts from the same dynamism from which the plants grow, life unfolds, the universe comes into being. The word is word when it has a speaker, when it speaks about something; the word is word when it speaks with something. Give us, O Creator of Life, this depth, this awareness, and this tremendous joy to discover in ourselves that creative power that we can speak, emit, and receive living words, words of eternal life, words that come of the peace, of the silence, of the transparency of everything. And then we may be able, more and more, to understand the language of many other speaking beings that may not articulate as we do.
Love: a basket of bread from which to eat for years to come; good loaves, fragrant and warm, miraculously multiplied: the basked never empty, the bread never stale.
At first, even one minute spent in unaccustomed prayer will seem as endless as an empty silence or a blank stillness; but these periods of quiet can be lengthened profitably, and these times of silent stillness can become alive, eventually becoming the most rewarding experiences of the day, as one discovers how much God has to say to those who will listen. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." A person who does not understand another's silences will not understand their words either.
Many of us would say that God knows all and sees all. Yet few of us act consistently with this apparent belief. It does not take particularly long, nor is it difficult to acquire the habit of stilling the mind and recognizing that the Presence of God is ever present to us. The initial effort requires a great spiritual struggle, but soon this habit of mind can be cultivated, developed. Then God takes over. It is as if God has seen that we are sincere in our efforts to live continually in the divine presence, and so when we have the human tendency to lapse, God assists us. But God does not initiate the attitude in us. We are allowed our freedom here, as in all other things. But when we choose the spiritual path of centering in the silence and of trying to be aware of God's divine presence in us at all times, ceaselessly, then we will receive the assistance that we need. We can imagine the tremendous, the significant effect such an ongoing experience will have on our lives. Working toward this end can lead to "ordinary" life lived on a heroic and life-giving level.
Wisdom and compassion must walk together. Having wisdom without compassion is like walking with one foot. You will fall down. If you have both wisdom and compassion, you can walk very well, step by step.
On this bright still silent November day, we walk through bare thickets toward the lake like a silver mirror; so calm, so glassy, it holds on its wide surface all the patterns of light and air above. Its silence silences us. Its stillness stops us in our tracks. As I bend to touch a stone, I hear a voice say, "Love the earth". I cock my ear and hear the echo, faint yet unmistakable as ocean sounding in a shell. When I try to summon it once more, only my words come. A great and terrible tenderness breaks over me. Each pebble, each shell, is filled with beauty; each, in this moment, articulate, a word spoken, and I imagine beyond the grasp of hearing the great murmuring of creation beneath my feet. I feel these patient stones lie like an eternal sacrifice, offering me the ground of their existence on which to grind and crunch the pathways of my life ... I haven't begun to love the earth. Does it take the awareness of our death to wake us up to life?
You can visualize God's light each day and send it to someone who needs help. Your divine nature can reach out and touch the divine nature of another. Within you is the light of the world, it is to be shared with the world. One way of prayer is to visualize a golden light within you and spread it out, first to those about you and then gradually to the world. Keep on visualizing God's golden light surrounding the earth. If you have a problem, take the matter to God in Silence, visualize it in God's hand. Then leave it, knowing it is in the best possible hands, and turn your attention to other things. Carry with you a constant prayer of gratitude. This will add your love and peace to the world.
Give me work to do;
Give me health;
Give me joy in simple things.
Give me an eye for beauty,
A tongue for truth,
A heart that love,
A mind that reasons,
A sympathy that understands;
Give me neither malice nor envy,
But a true kindness
And a noble common sense.
At the close of each day
Give me a book,
And a friend with whom
I can be silent.
All people carry in them thoughts that have the power to bring them instant peace.
One night last autumn I was strangely drawn to the beauty of a moonlit night; there was a strong urge to become part of the night and its beauty. After finishing my kitchen work, I went outside for a walk in the woods with my little puppy. The powerful beauty of the night stirred in my soul. The large silvery moon cast an eerie glow on my world, darkly engraving towering spruce trees against the lighter spaces between earth and its heavens. As the puppy trotted obediently and silently beside me, our shadowy figures against the ground were as daguerreotypes of days past. Almost without provocation, except by the incredibly soft beauty of the night, I felt the desire to meditate. I sat down on a grassy spot and my puppy sat by my side.
Entrance into meditation was easy and natural, taking me into a quietness of no-thinking and timelessness. When meditation was finished, I slowly opened my eyes to find my little dog sitting directly in front of me, watching me with ears erect. The moon, no longer among the spruce trees, had moved into larger spaces diminishing the contrasting blackness of the ethereal forest and the heavens. I found that I was covered with a heavy layer of shimmering dew. I don't know how long I had been meditating, but it was unimportant. I remained sitting on the dewy grass as a flow of nature swept through me. The moon, the shadows, the dew, my dog, and I were one in the silence of the moonlight night. I was aware of the omniscient feeling of detachment, a detachment from knowing the world through myself. I was one with the flow of the universe.