Sometimes I seek another word to express the word 'love'; but in this land of exile the word which begins and ends is quite incapable of rendering the vibrations of the soul: we must then adhere to the simple and only word: To Love.
How do we prepare ourselves to respond to crises, to conflict, to the Christ moment? How do we so open ourselves to Love that the fears which paralyze us are overcome? "I have found in my own life and through conversations with others that people need more and more to see the connection between ordinary reality and extraordinary grace, between everyday events and the divine mystery manifested in them. As this sensitivity to the sacred increases, we desire to give high priority to the person-to-person relationship that exists between the pilgrim soul and God. Only through the strength derived from this bond is it possible to give ourselves in turn to the service of others in the world."
When disaster comes unexpected, we discover the strength of our underpinning faith. Such was the destiny of a mother in Armenia:
When the earthquake hit, a mother and her child plummeted several stories as their apartment building crumpled. They were trapped in a tiny space in the basement barely able to move amidst the rubble. Dressed only in her slip and pinned down by beams, the mother --- thrust into a long, uninterrupted silence -- comforted her child for eight days and eight nights with her love. When the child had finished one jar of jam that had landed near them, she kept begging her mother for something to drink. Realizing they would both die without water, the mother scratched as far she could reach and found a shard of glass. One by one, she cut her fingers and hour by hour, she fed her child her own life blood. One the ninth day the rescuers found them. Out of the cold, dark prison, they were raised to new life.
There is but one solitude, and that is great, and not easy to bear, and to almost everybody come hours when they would gladly exchange it for any sort of intercourse, however banal and cheap, for the semblance of some slight accord with the first comer ... But perhaps those are the very hours when solitude grows; for its growing is painful ... But that must not mislead you. The necessary thing is after all but this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going-into-oneself and for hours meeting no one -- this one must be able to attain. To be solitary, the way one was solitary as a child ... Think of the world you carry within you ... What goes on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love ...
Those in love have a secret. Their gestures and voices and eyes communicate it. They rush to "wake the dawn" and warn the world of love's peculiar logic. They speak a new language and walk with new grace. They learn the dance of life, listening and opening, the rhythm of intimacy and ecstasy. They reverberate with the cosmos as it breathes in unison and blends the sources of silence and sound.
The Word not only reveals God, it unveils us. The Word is consecratory -- continuing to change us more and more into God's image so that we can hear and understand how God is speaking in us. For the Word that God speaks is deposited deeply within. The womb of the mind and heart must be readied, waiting and responsive. The Word does not simply imprint itself. It embeds itself, releasing seeds that fall on the earth of our hearts. And these Word-seeds will mature in their own time, so that we may become the Word.
The Word of God always renders God present to us. When we have the desire and openness to hear, in the Silence we can ask, "What is the Word of God that is being uttered in me? What is the Word of God inviting me to become?" And as we experience God's word deep within us, we are compelled to share it with others, to act out of God's presence within us. Happy are those who hear the Word and make it their own!
Only the one who can bear silence will hear the voice of God.
Only the one who can bear silence will hear the voice of God.