For some birds, songs are learned by listening to their parents and neighbors during
the first year. For other birds, songs are hardwired -- the music is scored in their
brains from the beginning. For mockingbirds, singing is a lifetime of choir practice
and talent shows, picking up new tunes and modifying old ones.
For silence is not God, nor speaking; fasting is not God, nor eating; solitude is not God, nor company; nor any other pair of opposites. God is hidden between them and cannot be found by anything your soul does, but only by the love of your heart. God cannot be known by reason, nor by thought, caught, or sought by understanding. But God can be love and chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.
Beloved, You love us and call us by name. Awaken in us the desire to know your presence in our hearts. Fill us with you Spirit of Truth opening us to your Love enabling us to trust in your Word. Strengthen our faith so that each day our lives may radiate the Love and the Light of your Life in us.
The changing of work into play is effected as a consequence of the presence of a "zone of perpetual silence," where one draws from a sort of secret and intimate respiration, whose sweetness and freshness accomplishes the anointing of work and transforms it into play. For the "zone of silence" not only dignifies the soul at rest; there is contact with the heavenly or spiritual world, which works together with the soul. Those who find silence in the solitude of meditation without effort are never alone.
