We come into this stillness like snowfall, the air alive with angels, every blessed flake singular and mysterious, what's outside quiet now, and changing form. Quickening, we breathe silence. Presence holds our lives in hush. Light dazzles. Listening, we learn to answer.
Listening is being silent with another person in an active way. It is silently bearing with another person. Some people are silent, but they are not open and active. They are either asleep or dead within themselves. The true listener is one who is quiet and yet sensitive toward another person, open and active, receptive and alive. Listening is participating in another life in a most creative and powerful way. It is neither coercive nor pushy. Rather, it is bearing one another's burdens.