winter, stillness

Our part is to pay attention,
to notice,
to turn aside,
to look deeper at each moment,
to look for God's presence,
to listen for God's word.

Calm and serene, let us listen to the Inner Voice. How could I have lived all that time without realizing that everything in the world has a voice and speaks? Not just the things that are supposed to speak, but the others, like the gate, the walls of the houses, the shade of trees, the sand, and the silence. Even before my accident [where I went blind], I loved sound, but now it seems clear that I didn't listen to it.

It was as though the sounds of earlier days were too far away from me, and heard through a fog. At all events my accident had thrown my head against the humming heart of things, and the heart never stopped beating.

In silence we discover ourselves, our actual presence to the life in us and around us. When we are present, deeply attentive, we cannot be busy controlling. Instead we become beholders -- giving ourselves up to the mystery of things. We become more willing to let things be. And, as a consequence we can also let ourselves be.

Through silence our days are illumined -- like rooms filled with light -- so we may inhabit our lives.

You are silence. Silence unites us, while words divide us. Silence gathers us together, while words scatter us. Silence invites us to peace, while words stir us to wars. You are silence, simple silence, eloquent silence, active silence, contemplative silence. ... Help me to be eloquently silent -- exactly as You are.

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart
The secret anniversaries of the heart.

Don't think that those who enter the silence of God are "silent". Nothing could be farther from the truth! Silence is a thunder! You will be able to hear it everywhere. Your nights and days will be filled with it. ...Many confuse silence with solitude. Solitude is being alone with God, waiting for God. But silence is an immense sea into which you enter and never leave. And once you have plunged into this silence, you will always be silent.

It is only in silence and through silence that we can interiorize what is beyond our comprehension and apprehend the power of a design larger than ourselves: it is the medium of transcendence.

Silence, waiting, empty stillness: these are not achievements we accomplish but living forces beyond ourselves which we learn to flow with, surrender to. There is a River of Stillness, or Musical Silence, or Beautiful Darkness flowing through the heart of al beings which we enter into when we allow ourselves to rest in quiet, in silence, waiting. The contemplative way is to begin listening to this dancing stillness.

Spend time in solitude and silence. Solitude permits us to retreat from the press and struggle in order to let our fragmented and dispersed selves to become collected again. Silence goes hand in hand with solitude. Silence sensitizes, just as noise desensitizes.