Quiet, contemplative prayer happens when we are still and open ourselves to the Spirit working secretly in us, when we heed the psalmist's plea: "be still and know that I am God." These are times when we trustingly sink into God's formless hands for cleansing, illumination, and communion. Sometimes spontaneous sounds and words come through us in such prayer, but more often we are in a state of quiet appreciation, simply hollowed out for God. At the gifted depth of this kind of prayer we pass beyond an image of God and beyond any image of self. We are left in a mutual raw presence. Here we realize that God and ourselves quite literally are more than we can imagine.
I’m going to be sorry when I retire, because I enjoy — if it’s one thing that I definitely enjoy, it’s my 8:00 class. My 8:00 class, they come to me, 8:00 a.m., they come to me from their dreams, and I come to them from mine... I like the freshness that they bring. And the other word would be, I like the love that we have for each other as we come into that class.