Basking in solitude, Silence is
the Friend who stills
lurking desires, as
Wisdom cuts through tangled
webs of illusion.
Meditation lights the Flame.
~ from WALKING WITH WISDOM by Nan C. Merrill
What sets monks apart from the rest of us is not an overbearing piety by a contemplative sense of fun. They know, as Trappist monk Matthew Kelty reminds us, that "you do not have to be holy to love God. You have only to be human. Nor do you have to be holy to see God in all things. You have only to play as a child with an unselfish heart."