When I sing I feel ecstatic, as if in communion with God. Maybe, when I sing, that's when I feel and experience it most in my life -- that lack of separation from God... I think that a song, if you allow it into your heart, can remind you that you are whole, that you are not just a fragment, but everything. If people sing, if they let themselves really sing, they can feel that inside... No matter who you are, if you sing from deep within you, transformation happens. A song, whether you are singing or listening, can let your heart open to the spiritual world.
CONTEMPLATIVES -- whether in monastic community or out in the marketplace -- not only help one another to grow grain and produce the bread of the body, but also bring one another to the spiritual ovens of solitude from which they are nourished with the hot, fresh Bread of the Spirit.
They not only press the grapes of their vineyards into material wine, but they lead one another to the eternal fountains of silence in which they drink the living waters and the rich wine of the Holy Spirit ... Thus, the Word of God comes silently into their midst, and eats and drinks with them.