O Silent Meeting, starting with a sigh
Of helpless awaiting for God's Presence there,
Each one alone, together sit, and I
Of my own breathing in and out aware.
The breath of God doth move within my heart
As surely in, and out, as that of me.
The Seed there needs to breathe if it's to start
To grow, to act within my life, to be
As breathing can't in life be hurried much,
So, too, the Seed will take its breathing space.
And, giving over will, desire, and such
I wait, expectant, bound to time and place.
Our mingled breathings fertilize the Seed,
And help us grow from Inward Light to deed.
We need quiet time in the presence of God. Although we want to make all our time time for God, we will never succeed if we do not reserve a specific and consistent amount of time to listen in the Silence. This asks for much discipline and risk-taking, because we often have something more urgent to do and "just sitting there" and "doing nothing" may disturb us more than it helps. But there is no way around this. Being useless and silent in the presence of God belongs to the core of all prayer. In the beginning, we often hear our own unruly inner noises more loudly than God's voice. This is at times very hard to tolerate. But slowly, very slowly, we discover that the silent time makes us quiet and deepens our awareness of ourselves and God. Then, very soon, we start to miss these moments when we are deprived of them, and before we are fully aware of it, an inner momentum has developed that draws us more and more into silence and closer to that still point where God speaks to us.