winter, stillness

As a witness for Peace, our role was to witness in two senses of the word: we SAW, and by our presence we offered affirmation by word or example of a solidarity based on love and faith and the Good News. The word that is much used is "accompaniment." Our contribution was less in our doing than our being-with.

Something of supreme rightness
Lies at the heart of Life...
Like a star or a single white rose
Sufficient in Itself...
Yet It reaches everywhere
Whispering Itself.

In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind. A connection is made, new relationships are formed and new patterns emerge. This process of being still and moving at the same time to something new is the way the experience of creative thinking comes about in our minds. T.S. Eliot alludes to this process in the middle of the "Four Quartets."

We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion.

"As the river enters into the ocean, so my heart touches Thee, O God."

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower -- the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

The desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.

I have a dream

• of people recognizing the giftedness uniquely theirs,
• of people standing tall in their gifts and using them to enrich the lives of others;
• of people coming to a deeper union of God dwelling within them and a deeper communion with one another.
• of peace and harmony reigning -- for power would be in docility to expressing one's gifts ...

I have a dream

• of a people drawn together out of a shared vision, a new way of living together,
• of each individual in their rightful place based on gifts,
• of men and women standing side by side serving together to bring peace and justice to the city,
• of a society based on deep trust that within each person
• is a well of goodness, beauty and truth longing to express itself for the good of all ... and in freeing this inner well, an ocean of love that could fill the world.

Thou sweet Well for all who thirsteth in the desert! It is closed to the one who speaks, but it is open to all who are silent. When the one who is silent comes, lo, that one finds the Well.

The following quotation from a new biography of Thomas Merton by Fr. Basil Pennington, seems to reflect the spirit of our prayer:

When we attain true freedom, we live in the spontaneity of the Spirit. And we do not know if we are coming or going. And others don't either ... Usually, we become a problem for those who want to have everything under control. Yet, there is within every one of us, IF WE DARE TO BE FREE ENOUGH TO LISTEN, an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of our creative energies and power ... If we dare to listen, we will soon enough realize that the change we seek is actually a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, and most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves, our true selves, in the One who is Christ" ... the Beloved of our hearts.

And, paraphrasing Max Picard in THE WORLD OF SILENCE:

"The mark of the Divine in God's good creation is preserved by the connection with the world of silence. For Silence is a primary, objective reality, which cannot be traced back to anything else ..." except Love itself. Or, as one of the saints exclaimed, "When the abyss of God's immensity encounters the abyss of our nothingness, God embraces our nothingness!" Abyss calls to abyss in the Silence. Each time we enter into the Silence, we open ourselves to the Beloved in a unique and vulnerable way ... we open the eyes and ears of our heart to the Heart of the universe.