May 2006 (Vol. XIX, No. 5)

"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard? "

WISDOM is birthed in silence, rising up from the Mystery of the Unseen, a potential grace dwelling within us. At the same time, Wisdom greets us in our daily lives through nature, sacred spaces, the sages among us, a child at play, our creative work, our angels … and all that is holy. Wisdom is a seed planted by Love that buds and blooms in those whose hearts are receptive and vulnerable, in those whose minds are quieted in prayer listening for the Voice of Silence. Wonder, humility, beauty, peace are but a few of Wisdom's fruits.

Wishing you wisdom moments, dear friends!

Thomas Merton

There is in all visible things
an invisible fecundity,
a dimmed light,
a meek namelessness,
a hidden wholeness.
This mysterious Unity and Integrity
is Wisdom, Mother of all,
"Natura naturans."

Leo Tolstoy

Humanity is not alone in the universe, but
surrounded by infinite powers of love and
wisdom.

China Galland The Bond Between Women

There is a goodness, a WISDOM that arises, sometimes gracefully, sometimes gently, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to save us if we let it, and it arises from WITHIN us, like the force that drives us into a great blossoming like a pear tree, into flowering, into fragrance, fruit, and song, into the wild wind dancing, sun shimmering, into the aliveness of it all, into that part of ourselves that can never be defiled, defeated, or destroyed, but that comes back to life, time and time again, that lives — always — that does not die. Into the Divine.

James Kavanaugh Celebrate the Sun

"Who will teach the young wisdom and discipline? "

Wisdom is not taught, systems are taught. Wisdom comes from experiencing life, or it never comes at all. And life is its own discipline.

"What produces growth and progress? "

Perhaps if we are not pushed and prodded or made to feel ashamed, we will achieve our growth — and our joy as well.

William of St. Thierry

We were created for You by yourself,
and towards You our face is set.
We acknowledge You,
our maker and creator;
we adore your wisdom and pray
that it may order all our life.
We adore your goodness and mercy, and
beg them ever to sustain and help us.

Guerric of Igny

The ways of wisdom bring peace.

Carolyn Gratton The Art of Spiritual Guidance

In the immense field of divine compassion, countless small life fields are interwoven with each other. When human hearts deepen through some form of contemplation, there emerges in them an intuition of human oneness prior to all separation ... a "communion of saints.  "In each religion's communal story, there is a way of handing on from generation to generation this transforming perception of universal solidarity in the Mystery. We do not learn such wisdom on our own. We receive this wisdom from someone else.

Hilarion

Meditation and the "seeking of the silence within" are the
best methods of uncovering the wisdom of the spirit.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Wisdom is a living stream, not an icon preserved in a museum. Only when we find the spring of wisdom in our own life can it flow to future generations.
 

Kabir Helminski The Knowing Heart

The knowing heart is receptive to the intelligence of Being and is guided by Being. When the heart is awakened and purified, it establishes a connection to Spirit; our finest and noblest capacities are unlocked, our sacred humanness is revealed. What it comes down to, the distillation of all wisdoms, is this: we can rejoin our isolated wills with Love's Will through the knowing of the heart.

Jean M. Blomquist Weavings (July/August 1997)

Holy wisdom embraces and enables our knowledge, judgment, insight, even as it draws us beyond them. We are given words when we have nothing to say. We are kept silent when we ache to run off at the mouth. We reach out when we would otherwise pull back, cut off, turn away. Our own wisdom is rooted in God's gift of wisdom to us. The soil it grows in is our daily lives, including our relationships with God, ourselves, and others. Only by trusting what little we know, by pushing the edges of our own wisdom, will wisdom grow.

Corinne Heline The Cosmic Harp

Wisdom has been defined as crystallized pain.
It is the distilled essence of experience: of
pain and pleasure, sorry and joy, darkness and light.

Claire Blatchford Turning

The wiser one is, the quieter one is, for the truly wise one knows, "I know nothing except that I must listen and through listening learn to speak and act. "


Marianne Williamson

Cultivating our wisdom is one of our most important tasks. If we don't spend enough time alone listening to the counsel of our hearts, then we will never become wise. If we don't spend enough time in the presence of others who try to walk a path of heart, we will never become wise. If we do not cultivate, through prayer or meditation or spiritual practice, a stronger heart that can fly and endure, then we'll never become wise.

Aeschylus

Pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart,
and in our sleep, against our will, comes wisdom through the
awful grace of God.

John Fox Poetic Medicine

Wisdom is not found on a computer chip. It pulses within our heart, in the flow of being, through the precision of stars keeping their courses. Wisdom is not the possession of any one person or group but is found when we realize our relationship to everything that is.

Anonymous

True wisdom emerges silently.

Anonymous

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still.