It is because of our wounds, our pain and our sadness, that we turn from the outer world and trace the thread of our own darkness back to its source. It leads us through the barriers of pain to the place of our own healing. But in the very process of making this journey the light of consciousness which we carry with us transforms our darkness. The individual who arrives at the source is very different from the person who set out upon the quest. During the course of this journey we have to accept and integrate what we find within us -- our pain and our anger and all the many forms our darkness has taken. ... We will have to accept ourselves as we really are. This then will be the chalice into which the Divine Wine can be poured.
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.