Into this Dark, beyond all light, we pray to come and, unseeing and unknowing, to see and to know the One that is beyond seeing and beyond knowing...That is to do as sculptors do, drawing the statue latent there...and displaying the beauty hidden there.
At first silence had seemed a deprivation, a symbol of an unwanted isolation. I had resented the solitude of my life and fought it. But gradually the enveloping quiet became a positive element, almost a presence...It seemed to hum, gently but melodiously, and to orchestrate the ideas that I was contending with, until they started to sing too, to vibrate, and reveal an unexpected resonance. After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence: it had become my teacher.