Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.
~ THROUGH THE YEAR WITH THOMAS MERTON with thanks to C.Ritz
In what sense can individual strands be torn from the one fabric of reality and be considered complete? My well-being will come only in relationship to our well-being and the well-being of all things. We are being invited to seek a new salvation. It will come through and with one another, not in separation from one another.
What does it mean to be made in the image of God?... In part, it is to say that wisdom is deep within us, deeper than the ignorance of what we may have done or become... When we lose touch with the wisdom that is within us, we live out of ignorance... Grace is given not to implant in us a foreign wisdom but to make us alive to the wisdom that was born in us.
Nature and grace are viewed as flowing together from God. They are both sacred gifts. The gift of nature ... is the gift of "being"; the gift of grace, on the other hand, is the gift of "well-being." Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature.
Just as God speaks to us through the words of scripture, so God speaks to us through the elements of creation. The cosmos is like a living sacred text that we can learn to read and interpret. Just as we prayerfully ponder the words of the Bible in Christian practice, and as other traditions study their sacred texts, so we are invited to listen to the life of creation as an ongoing, living utterance of God.
Each month for the past 31 years, we have poured tremendous time, thought, love and resources into Friends of Silence, which remains free and is made possible by patronage.
If you have found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider supporting our labor of love with a donation.
And if you already donated, from the bottom of our hearts: THANK YOU.
