Silence is the training ground for the art of listening. Engaging the silence may be one of the most important and productive things you can do for spiritual deepening.
I know for us compulsive, productive, extroverted types, this is a tall order. The bottom line is -- it's worth it. But we have to believe that it really matters. In our culture, silence and stillness have been equated with wasting time, doing nothing, being lazy. NOT TRUE. Think of it this way -- the silence of meditation is not the silence of a graveyard; it is the silence of a garden growing.
~ from OPENING YOURSELF TO THE GUIDANCE OF GOD by Linda Douty
There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you... until the day you begin to share your stories. And all at once, in the room where no one else is quite like you, the world opens itself up a little wider to make some space for you.
