winter, stillness

Dom Henri le Saux, a French Benedictine monk, suggests that the sacred sound "OM" can be used by anyone:

More than any particular name of Divinity, OM conveys the ineffability and the depths of the divine Mystery. It bears no distinct meaning ... It does not even recall any mythological or semi-historic event. It is a kind of inarticulate exclamation uttered when you are confronted with the Presence in yourself and around yourself.

You could say that OM is a name of God which is not a name.

Silence makes the secretions of the mind visible. By emptying myself when I fast, emptying myself in solitude, I might discover myself full -- of history, wilderness and society. And I can see my identity co-evolving with all of creation ... I willingly entered the Valley of the Shadow through solitude, silence, stillness, meditation, and prayer. In those quiet places, I discovered a mindstream whose depths were luminous.

The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.

A day filled with noise and voices can be a day of silence, if the noises become for us the echo of the presence of God, if the voices are, for us, messages and solicitations of God.

Spiritual growth occurs only when insight encourages both our hears and minds to give up the "advantages" of staying the same for something greater yet unknown.

Wind in the cave.
Movement in stillness.
Power in silence.

The true Word of eternity will be spoken only in solitude, where people are made desolate and estranged from themselves. This emptiness exerts a profound influence. For if something empty existed under heaven, no matter what you wish and no matter whether it be large or small, love would either carry it to heaven or have to come down and fill it with love. The purpose of emptiness is to receive, to be filled ... God needs nothing more than for us to offer a quiet heart.

Solitude is an attitude of gratitude ... It is a state of mind, a state of heart, a whole universe unto itself. The early contemplatives in all traditions knew this secret of happiness -- that being alone was a great gift. And whether or not we sit upon the mountain top or kitchen stool, whether we seek a sacred place or simply stir the soup, the message is the same. For what does it mean to be alone, if not to be all one. To be who you are already in your deepest self, to be happy.

I, who live by words, am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart --
to silence that is joy, is adoration.
The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen.