In prayer the stilled voice learns to hold its peace,
to listen with the heart to silence that is joy, is
adoration. The self is shattered, all words torn apart
in this strange patterned time of contemplation that,
in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me, and then,
in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
At the heart of ministry is the Silence... Contemplating words or images or imaginings is at least one step removed from the direct experience of God. For as Alan Watts liked to say, "If you find a thousand names for God you will not have God, you will only have a list of names." To contemplate God rather than images about God one can only go humbly, empty of thought and self, into the presence of God -- into the Silence. It is out of the Silence that we love, act, speak if we do so with true spiritual integrity.