There is a powerful stage of spiritual growth where longing for the Friend, the Beloved, is a consuming passion, a burning. And there is another place where personal longing for God gets pushed over into a vast Silence.
Rules for an icon painter: During work, pray in order to strengthen yourself physically and spiritually; avoid, above all, useless words, and keep silence.
May the work you do make your heart sing,
and my the vocation you choose be LOVE.
God is absorbed in work, and hears
the spacious hum of bees, not the din,
and hears far-off
our screams. Perhaps
God listens for prayers in that wild solitude.
And hurries on with weaving:
till it's done, the garment woven,
our voices, clear under the familiar
blocked-out clamor of the task,
can't stop their
terrible beseeching. God
imagines it sifting through, at last, to music
in the astounded quietness, the loom idle,
the weaver at rest.