Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
~ Wendell Berry, excerpt from "The Wild Geese" in THE SELECTED POEMS OF WENDELL BERRY
To begin to enter into the profound silence that resides in the depths of our beings is to begin to enter the realm of the Godhead beyond God. Beyond speech, beyond apprehension, is a realm of generative actuality, the realm of essential being out of which the Word is eternally begotten. Our silence is both and the clear road by which the Word proceeds most directly into our hearts.
For the abbas (fathers) and ammas (mothers) of the desert, solitude with its silence was a creative medium, a forge of transformation through which the false self in its adaptation to the pride, luxury, lust for power, and greed of the "world" was melted away in the fires of spiritual discernment. One emerged from the silence as a transformed self ... a person of humility, compassion, and responsiveness to the Word of God.
Silence was much more than not speaking, it was mostly a quality of heart. It was the creation of an inner space where genuine listening takes place. The ammas and abbas knew that in silence the Word most readily takes root.
~ from THE VIGIL by Wendy M. Wright with thanks to Elizabeth Fribance
