I wonder what beauty is. I have been seeing lovely things all my life, but they never moved me, never presented themselves so poignantly as they have done since I entered into adversity. Now beauty appears as something more than itself. It seems to me a gateway into God. the thrilling, moving, tremendous thing about it is not the especial aspect under which it appears, not the tree, the flower the bird note at dusk, but the occasional sense of otherwhereness, of something more, a marvelous Something — complete ecstasy — that beauty half reveals... It is this overpowering Something, hidden in the midst of beauty, that moves one so exquisitely, tears the heart out, almost terrifies at times by its nearness — "Oh Ecstasy behind the grass, come softly when Thou comest nigh!"
Those who practice a watch of silence each day find their devotion takes them into ever-deepening realizations of God's immediate presence.
Silent watch periods are momentous opportunities that call for alert, expectant, and reverent participation. They are a foundation for prayer and an altar of awareness in the temple of reception.
They constitute the practice of our realization of God's immediate presence. The high moment of silence is that of consciously realizing God's envelopment.