winter, stillness

... as happened a few months ago, the old question of what to do returned. Is there anything to be done? Anything I can do? I put it directly to myself -- aloud: What ... can ... I ... do? I listened. No answer. I waited. Nothing came ... nothing. The emptiness remained. Then, in the silence, quite suddenly, came the realization that the wholeness that I had been seeking and not finding was present -- not "out there" in time and space, not somewhere else, but intrinsically here and now. Silence danced through me. I saw that when the brain-mind stops churning and is still, the longed for blissful dimension is already here ... All this was seen because consciousness was not occupied. That was all. A thrilling aliveness had become a dynamic emptiness that is not void -- space filled with energy ... (with ecstasy)!

There must be a time of day when we who make plans forget our plans and act as if we had no plans at all. There must be a time of day that when we have to speak, we fall very silent ... and our mind forms no more propositions, and we ask: Did they have a meaning? There must be a time when we who pray go to our prayer as if it were the first time in our life that we had ever prayed; when we of resolutions put our resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and we learn a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.

In every ministry, one is giving something to someone else; in shared silence, one is giving oneself. Sharing interior silence is the giving of one's inmost being to another. When one does this in a group, everyone shares everybody else's level or degree of interior silence. Thus, everyone in the group tends to move to a deeper place than when alone and relying on one's own limited experience.

This is especially the case when silence is penetrated by the gift of interior silence. Then silence is an encounter with the divine presence within. One rests in the conviction of faith and in peace that transcends joy and sorrow. It brings one in face-to-face contact with God, so to speak, a being-to-being exchange.

One who speaks from the lips
chatters ...
One who speaks from an empty mind
adds confusion to discord ...
One who speaks from a full mind
feeds the minds of others ...
One who speaks from the heart
wins the confidence of humanity ...
But one who speaks from the soul
heals the heartbreaks of the world
and feeds hungry, starving souls ...

Do not move
in order to touch me,
for I am stillness itself.

Do not be drawn
in many directions
in order to take hold of me;
I am unity itself.

Stop the movement,
unify diversity,
and you will surely reach me,
who long ago reached you.

God, our creator and sustainer,
you loved us long before we knew ourselves to be lovable and love us still.
Give us, we pray,
a greater awareness of your love for all people,
and a confidence in the action of your grace
in us and in all creation.
Inspire us with a greater sensitivity
to the poor and oppressed.
Give us the courage to act on their behalf.
We praise you today
for your mysterious ways among us:
for your presence in the midst of human affairs
and your seeming absence.
By the power of your Spirit,
may we grow in the truth that impels us to act justly,
and thus give expression to the compassion
of the One who is Love. Amen.

By listening deeply to the message of any given moment, I shall be able to tap the very Source of Meaning and to realize the unfolding meaning of my life. To listen in this way means to listen with one's heart, with one's whole being. The heart stands for that center of our being at which we are truly "together." Together with ourselves, not split up into intellect, will, emotions, into mind and body. Together with all other creatures, for the heart is that realm where I am paradoxically not only most intimately myself, but most intimately united with all. Together with God, the source of life, the life of my life, welling up in the heart. In order to listen with my heart, I must return again and again to my heart through a process of centering, through taking things to heart. Listening with my heart I will find meaning.

For, when all is said and done, each of us, and in the deepest part of our self, has to learn to accept our own essential solitude. In each of our hearts, there is a wound -- the wound of our own loneliness which hurts at moments of setback and can be even more painful at the time of death. And all suffering, sadness and depression is a foretaste of that death, a manifestation of our deep wound which is part of the human condition. Because our hearts thirst for the infinite, they will never be satisfied with the limitations which are always a sign of death, a manifestation of our deep wound which is part of the human condition. Because our hearts thirst for the infinite, they will never be satisfied with the limitations which are always a sign of death. We can touch that infinite in art, music, poetry and silence. We can experience moments of communion and love, of prayer and ecstasy -- yet, they are only moments.

If there is any focus that the spiritual leader of the future will need, it is the discipline of dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, "Do you love me? Do you love me?" It is the discipline of contemplative prayer. Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from becoming strangers to our own and God's heart. Contemplative prayer keeps us home, rooted and safe, even when we are on the road, moving from place to place, and often surrounded by sounds of violence and war. Contemplative prayer deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everything and everyone around us keep suggesting the opposite.