What is it that we do when we come together on alternate Tuesday evenings? The word SILENCE is the key to answering this question. The first time we met we agreed that silence would be the container for our prayers as well as a form of prayer in itself. We sit in a circle on floor cushions with our eyes open or closed ... It makes no difference. What matters is that everything that emerges from this silence -- a word, an image, a line of scripture or poetry, a probing question -- is held by each of us as if it is our collective heart speaking. And it is this heart that we listen to and follow as we pray ... Although we do not always know the way to God, our collective heart reminds us again and again as we sit together in the silence that God knows the way to us.
After the loss of so many of my loved ones, and coming so close to death myself on several occasions, I now see death as a new beginning to learning and to loving rather than a waste, a destruction, or a suffering hardly to be endured. So often we forget that life is a gift and loved ones are special gifts lent to us from on High, for a time. We unite with the spirit of our loved ones through prayer and silence. If we reach out to the Author of love and ask for help to live without selfishness and to deepen our awareness and our compassion towards all others, then we can emerge from a sea of grief, from the inevitability of tragedy and the losing of love. It is essential to learn to laugh and love again.