Anne Strader

January 2012 (Vol. XXV, No. 1)

NEW YEAR’S GREETINGS, Dear Friends of Silence.  What is your deepest, most heartfelt hope for this year?  No doubt we all have many hopes and wishes as we usher in yet another new year.  It is traditional to make "New Year’s Resolutions" when the year changes, but what if we made a list focused on our hopes for the year instead of making resolutions?  What if we made only one resolution: to dwell in hope?  How might we (and the world!) change if we truly live in hope?  As we sit in silence daily, let’s reflect deeply on our hopes, for the world and for ourselves.  We may be surprised by how it affects our lives and those around us!

Read Email Newsletter
 

Hope is the chorus

Sr. Mary Frances Fleischaker

Narrow is the boundary
of "now" and "not-yet"
Deep and dark it stretches
like an ancient passageway
no map has ever marked.
One by one we walk it
step by solitary step.
Not hand in hand,
Not side by side,
But sounding the distance with our tears.
Hope is the chorus sounding, "Come!"
Hope is the embrace, waiting to welcome.
Hope is the companion,
In-Between . . .

True hope is rooted in a reality beyond ego

Nan Merrill

True hope is rooted in a Reality beyond ego and illusion. Hope that rises in our hearts is like a buoyant bubble of champagne; for some, it brings tears of relief, while others, may sense a new way to the future that will bring healing to us -- personally, communally, nationally, globally -- to all of Creation. Hope recognizes that many challenges await us on the path, obstacles and possible pitfalls that may delay outcome. In hope we are made new; for it is a sure and steadfast anchor of our soul that enters "the inner shrine behind the curtain," where the Divine Guest abides. So, in the Silence, let us embrace Love and dare to hope: the promise for all of Creation.

Pure hope

David Steindl-Rast Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer

The hope that is left after all your hopes are gone -- that is pure hope, rooted in the heart.

Hope is the realization of connectedness of all things

Benjamin Creme Maitreya's Mission Vol. II

Hope is the realization of the inner connectedness of all things; of your life and your daily activity with the cosmic scheme of things. The awareness of who you are, that you are the self--that gives you hope. Faith and hope stem from the same inner, intuitive realization of who you are, that you are here for a purpose and that nothing on earth can shake that.

Hope is a rest from labors

Hieromonk Damascene Christ the Eternal Tao

The power of love is in hope,
For by it we await the reward of love.
The failing of hope is the disappearance of love.
Hope is a rest from labors in the midst of labors.
Toils depend on it.
Mercy encircles it.
Experiencing the gifts of the Giver of Life engenders hope.
But he who is without experience remains in doubt.

Hope is what the breath is to our bodies

John R. Claypool

Hope is essential for us. What the breath is to our physical bodies, hope is to our human spirits.

How could we tire of hope?

Denise Levertov Candles in Babylon

We have only begun
to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
So much is in the bud.

Hope and silence

Thomas Merton

Silence is the strength of our interior life . . . if we fill our lives with silence, then we will live in hope.

Called to communicate a mystery of hope

Br. Roger of Taize Thin Places

Are we not called to communicate
a mystery of hope
to those around us
by the lives we lead?

Hope is rooted in emptiness

Catherine de Hueck

Hope is rooted in emptiness, in poverty, in a waiting that belongs to the pure in heart. Hopeful silence is patient, thirsty, yet withal dynamic, for it desires to become One with God. In this kind of silence of hope lies our strength.

Hope is what sits by a window

Joan Chittister

Hope is what sits by a window and waits for one more dawn, despite the fact that there is not one ounce of proof in tonight's black, black sky that it can possibly come.

Hope is the foundation of the spiritual life

Simone Weil

Waiting patiently in hope and expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

So simple a thing as hope

Daniel Berrigan

The gift we can offer others is so simple a thing as hope.

Those who live in hope

George Herbert

Those who live in hope, dance without music.

Hope looks steadfastly

Morton Kelsey The Other Side of Silence

Faith is a gift that comes, the gift of assurance that the powers of light have conquered and will keep on defeating the darkness.  Hope is our own attitude of looking steadfastly toward that victory and trying to order our lives toward it.  Faith and hope are far easier attitudes to live with than despair and disillusionment . . . so I deliberately choose to hope.  Through hope and faith the inner journey has direction and a goal and meditation becomes a process of discovering the reality of Divine Love.

December 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 11)

Warm greetings, dear friends, in this blessed season! As we journey through our lives, may we walk with awareness of our accompanying angels, knowing we may experience them in many ways. Angels may bring comfort when we are suffering, peace that calms raging inner wars, hope in times of despair. And during normal, everyday times, when nothing significant seems to be happening and we seem to be just plodding along, our angels, with their gentle humor, joy, laughter, and warm presence, can add a wonderful lightness to our lives. IF, that is, we remember to ask them for what we need! Be sure to include your angels in all your days; be open to their surprises, talk to them, ask them for any help you need, from the most mundane to the very important.  You may be amazed at what happens -- and don’t forget to thank them for always being there!

Read Email Newsletter

Those who harken when we pray

Reginald Winder

Know there are those who harken when we pray,
And succour from the realms of Light will send.
Ever at hand to guide us, or defend,
Till breaks at last the dawning of our Day.

To evoke angels

Harvey Humann The Many Faces of Angels

To evoke angels . . . we need only to live in quiet expectation of their presence and attune ourselves to their heedings. . . . From time to time, angels conceive and bring about serendipitous experiences and events in our lives to remind us that we are continually in God's care and that we are part of a divinely ordered universe.

Make yourself familir with the angels

St. Francis de Sales

Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit, for without being seen, they are present with you.

Cementing and grouting the seven angels

Sharon Abercrombie EarthLight

As James Maxton cemented and grouted the seven angels, he underwent a spiritual transformation. A diabetic, coming off drugs, James suffered pain and swelling in his feet. He could only work three hours a day. Once every hour, he would limp back to his house and bathe his feet in ice. It wasn't until he completed the icons that James saw the beauty of what he had created. "I got all choked up," he says. "For me it was a spiritual awakening, just looking at them, seeing the people all around looking at the angels, too. I like to say I was reborn in that garden. It was my personal resurrection."

O sovereign angel

Edna St. Vincent Millay

O sovereign angel,
Wide-winged stranger
above a forgetful earth,
Care for me, care for me,
Keep me unaware of danger
And not regretful
And not forgetful
of my innocent birth.

Entertaining angels unawares

Hebrews 13:2

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

We all have angels watching us

Sophy Burnham

We all have angels watching us . . .
What will bring their help?
Asking . . Giving thanks.

How the angels speak in heaven

Nikos Kazantzakis St. Francis

I stood in the back corner watching them. They resembled three veterans who had met once more on a cold day after years of separation, and had lit a fire to warm themselves. I had pricked up my ears to overhear what they said, but none of them opened his mouth. You felt the air between them was vibrating and that a string of unspoken words was being unwound from mouth to mouth. Without the slightest doubt, this was how the angels spoke in heaven. How long did their silence last -- how many hours? It seemed to me time had come to a standstill, that one hour and one century were of the same length.

Practice to spot angelic presences

Alan Jones Soul Making

It takes practice to spot angelic presences. But practice alone is not enough, unless one can practice being taken by surprise.

Angels are forms, images and expressions

Don Gilmore Angels, Everywhere

Angels are forms, images and expressions through which the essences and energy forces of God can be transmitted; and, since there are an infinite number of these forms, the greatest service anyone can pay the angelic host is never consciously to limit the ways angels might appear to us.

There must be an angel

David A. Stewart, Annie Lennox There Must Be an Angel

No one on earth could feel like this,
I'm thrown and overblown with bliss
There must be an angel
Playing with my heart.

On Thee the Angels look

John Henry Newman Meditations and Devotions

On Thee the Angels look and are at peace; that is why they have perfect bliss. They never can lose their blessedness, for they never can lose Thee. They have no anxiety, no misgivings -- because they love the Creator.

The companioning presence of angels

Nan Merrill Friends of Silence

Living with an awareness of the companioning presence of angels . . . we come to realize angelic joy is working with us, surprising us, and reminding us that we are loved beyond measure. Limit not the myriad ways your angelic companions may knock on the door of your heart. Spending time in the Silence draws them nigh.

Good and powerful beings watching us

Matthew Fox

If human beings knew that good and powerful beings were watching us, maybe we would stand up more erect and be more beautiful ourselves. We would be inspired to live up to our dignity.

Angels want to sing to us

F. David Peat Lighting the Seventh Fire

There is a medieval belief that angels want to sing to us. It makes them happy to do so. All we have to do is listen.

We are the warp and Angels the weft

Eileen Elias Freeman The Angels' Little Instruction Book

Life is a tapestry: We are the warp; angels, the weft; God, the weaver. Only the Weaver sees the whole design.

The opulence of existence

Robert Sardello The Angels

Angels add immensely to the opulence of existence.

November 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 10)

Warm greetings, dear friends! As the year draws to a close, the world around us seems to slow down, reflecting a drawing inward, a time of rest to rebuild reserves of strength, food for another active season of growing and producing. The earth lies fallow, while deep within, that which is necessary for life and growth replenishes itself. We would do well to observe and take in this valuable lesson from nature. We, too, need time to lie fallow, time to just be, to listen and dream and wait for the wisdom at the center of our being to make itself known to us before we enter again into a busy season of doing. In the silence we come home to ourselves, we remember who we are; in the silence we are renewed and strengthened for the seasons of our lives.

Read Email Newsletter

Silence is the matrix from which the word is born

David Steindl-Rast

Silence is the matrix from which word is born, the home to which word returns through understanding. Word (in contrast to chatter) does not break the silence.

In a genuine word, silence comes to word. In genuine understanding, word comes home into silence. For those who know only the world of words, silence is mere emptiness. But our silent heart knows the paradox: the emptiness of silence is inexhaustibly rich; all the words in the world are merely a trickle of its fullness.

This silence is alive, making possible a change

Phyllis Cole Dei, James Murray The Emptiness of Our Hands

Coming to the red-brick church, we slip inside to rest, reflect, and lay prayerful hands on our ailing bodies. The sanctuary is empty. We sidle into pews, remove our hats, gloves, coats. Silence. Yank off our shoes. Silence.

Unlike the silence of a library with its absence of noise, of outward distractions, its rules and kindly librarians who shhhh! at you, in the empty church the silence is different. It's all about presence. Presence you can't name for what it truly is, can't see, but you can feel, if you bring your heart across the threshold of the outside world. This church could as easily be a synagogue, mosque, or a temple. There you meet yourself, and that inexpressible mystery that lies beyond you. This presence requires reverence, not obedience. We kneel at the shrine with no donation to make but our prayers -- for things beyond words, prayers of the open heart. This silence is alive, making possible a change. Silence

The power of silence

Nan Merrill Walking With Wisdom

We come to know the power of Silence
In deep meditation; here,
True Wisdom emerges silently,
Rising up from the Mystery
Of the unseen Source within all.

The great truth has great silence

Rabindinath Tagore

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Silence brings us back to basics

Gunilla Norris Inviting Silence

Silence brings us back to basics, to our senses, to our selves. It locates us. Without that return we can go so far away from our true natures that we end up, quite literally, beside ourselves. We live blindly and act thoughtlessly. We endanger the delicate balance which sustains our lives, our communities, and our planet.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. . . all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

A habit of silence

Marv Hiles The Way Through

Silence as a spiritual practice is much more than being able to sit still without talking for thirty minutes or longer. Instead, silence is a quality of presence. The silence we search for is an overall state of being. It is not something we achieve with great effort, either, but something we uncover that is inside us. Somewhere at our core there is a reservoir of silence. . . . To return regularly to this depth, whether in cloistered silence or in line at the grocery, is called "a habit of silence." It is not duration that is important, but the returning time after time to the source within us that, in time, shapes who we are.

The silence that is printed in the center of our being

Thomas Merton

May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

Silence is one of the major thresholds in the world

John O'Donohue Anam Cara

Silence is one of the major thresholds in the world. . . . Meister Eckhart said that there is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence. Silence is a great friend of the soul; it unveils the riches of solitude. It is very difficult to reach that quality of inner silence. You must make a space for it so that it may begin to work for you. In a certain sense, you do not need the whole armory and vocabulary of therapies, psychologies, or spiritual programs. If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you. These are some wonderful lines from the French poet Rene Char: "Intensity is silent, its image is not. I love everything that dazzles me and then accentuates the darkness within me." Here is an image of silence as the force that discloses hidden depth. Silence is the sister of the divine.

The reason we flee silence

M. Basil Pennington

Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self -- the false self -- and no one wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want.

A loving silence has power to heal

Rachel Naomi Remen

A loving silence has far more power to heal than the most well-intentioned words.

Darkness, stillness, silence

Robert Hirschman Brown

each evening
is a softly
glowing
entrance
into
darkness
stillness
silence

The silence within us

Swami Amar Jyoti

The silence within us is the source of all that we are.

Silence is not an absence but a presence

Anne D. LeClaire Listening Below the Noise

Lindbergh wrote more than fifty years ago, "Not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands in distractions. Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel, we add more centrifugal activities to our lives -- which tend to throw us off balance."

But our spirit has an instinct for silence. Every soul innately yearns for stillness, for a space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest, and by doing so come to a deeper sense of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence. Not an emptiness but repletion. A filling up.

October 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 9)

Greetings, dear FOS friends. Consider for a moment the conundrum of TRUTH. Every tradition and many individuals claim to know Truth, but the various belief systems can be quite different. Surely we cannot all be right, so...what is Truth? Picture in your mind a huge circle, with Truth sitting in the center and all the people of the world sitting around the circumference. Each of us is looking at Truth, but since we are all seeing it at a slightly different angle, no two of us will see exactly the same thing. How then do we know what Truth is? How do we recognize it? We can take our confusion into the silence and ask That which is deepest within us to help us recognize truth when and where we find it, for Truth is to be found within us. It is there in the deepest part of us, that place where a spark of God resides, just waiting for us to seek it.

In the end we are all encountering a single truth

Joel Habgood Confessions of a Conservative Liberal

The word integrity has two meanings. The first is "honesty"... We have to be honest in facing our limitations, in facing the sheer complexity of the world, honest in facing criticism even of things which are deeply precious to us. But integrity also means wholeness, oneness, the desire for single vision, the refusal to split our minds into separate compartments where incompatible ideas are not allowed to come into contact. An undivided mind looks in the end for an undivided truth, a oneness at the heart of things. The whole intellectual quest, despite its fragmentation, despite its limitations and uncertainties, seems to presuppose that in the end we are all encountering a single reality, and a single truth.

We are at liberty to be about truth or untruth

Esther Armstrong, Dale Stitt Journey into Freedom

We are at liberty to be real or unreal, to be about truth or untruth. We really do have a choice. We are talking here about a felt knowledge, inner awareness, knowings that come out of the quiet, from a deep place within. Our truth is just ours. And we believe it is wise to be leery of anyone who [claims] to hold ALL truth -- even organizations, ministries, and leaders whose values we admire. A part of the journey into freedom is examining the truths upon which we have built our lives and discovering that we have choices about who we follow, where we put our time and money. And our choices, our truths, make us who we are.

The task of the peacemaker is to speak the truth

John Dear Living Peace

The task of the peacemaker is to speak the truth, whether our culture wants to hear it or not. As we speak the truth in a spirit of love and peace, we will realize deeper levels of truth and begin to understand the great truth of human unity and God’s way of nonviolence. The pursuit of truth ultimately is the pursuit of God.

Truth is within ourselves

Robert Browning Paracelsus 13”

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from
outward things, what e’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness . . . and to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
supposed to be without.

Trust that truth

Alice Walker

Trust that truth whether good or bad, pretty or ugly, is
still truth . . . the knowledge of anything true brings
freedom and empowerment back to oneself.

Whoever deeply searches out the truth

Boethius

Whoever deeply searches out the truth and will not be deceived by paths untrue, shall turn unto himself his inward gaze, shall bring his wandering thoughts in circle home and teach his heart that what it seeks abroad, it holds in its own treasure chests within.

Te revealer of truth

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth.

Absolute truth exists only in the mind of God

William Johnston

Let us humbly remember that absolute truth exists only
in the mind of God. We human beings are forever searching.

If you really seek the truth

Valerie Alfeyeva

Somebody once said that if you really seek the truth, whatever road you travel, sooner or later you come to God.

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled

Bertrand Russell

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant,
never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the
devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

Happy are those who, while possessing the truth, search more earnestly for it

Pope John XXIII

Happy are those who, while possessing the truth, search more earnestly for it in order to renew it, deepen it, and transmit it to others. Happy also are those who, not having found truth, are working toward it with a sincere heart.

Luminous is the word the Truth

Nan Merrill Lumen Christi . . . Holy Wisdom

Luminous is the word of Truth; like
a laser beam, it cuts through
ignorance and illusion. . . .
Blessed are those who choose Truth.
Their path is made straight,
their spirit freed to soar.

In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth

Ryokan

In all ten directions of the universe,
there is only one truth.
When we see clearly,
the great teachings are the same.
What can ever be lost? What can be obtained?
If we attain something, it was there from
the beginning of time.
If we lost something,
it is hiding somewhere near us.

September 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 8)

Autumn blessings to each of you, dear friends of silence!  It's hard to believe summer vacations are over and harvest time, with fall activities and duties is here.  As we return to our workplaces, consider Gibran’s teaching: "Work is your love made visible."   Adding consciousness and attention to the skills we bring to our workplace is demonstrating love visibly, and what a difference it can make!  For as within, so without: If we work consciously and with love shining, we are adding Light to our surroundings and others will respond to it.  That still point deep within can guide us from day to day, from moment to moment, and promote a more peaceful, cooperative atmosphere as we go about our duties.  So may it be for each of us!
 

The workplace as a source of creative subject matter and energy

Shaun McNiff The Soul of Creativity, The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace

If artistic creations emerge from our lives and the ways in which we see the world, then it seems useful to engage the workplace as a source of creative subject matter and energy.  The job is the place where most of us spend time and expend effort each day.  It is the world we inhabit, and I believe we can make it better and more satisfying through the conscious use of the creative process.  . . .   Our creations and our lives are enhanced when we realize that everything in our environment is a source for imagination.
 
 

The many work for the One

R. L. Wing

Society functions at its very best when each member finds security in their place in the social structure.  When all members can be gainfully employed, yet have individual initiative, when they can excel in their own craft and find satisfaction in their work contributing to the overall goals of society, then there exists harmony and a sense of community.  When members have an interest in the continuity of their community, great deeds can be accomplished.  This is because the many work for the One.
 

Work for him was the very stuff of salvation and healing

Sonny Brewer The Poet of Tolstoy Park

When Henry wove a rug, he wove from the depths of his spirit and from the fullness of his heart, and with the careful eye of a focused mind.  Directly across from his upright loom, at eye level on the concave wall of the hut, Henry had lettered a small sign for his own inspiration: BY THEIR WORKS YE SHALL KNOW THEM.  And more, it was a reminder that his remission from consumption, he believed, had come as a consequence of work with his hands.  Work for him was the very stuff of salvation and healing.  For that reason, whenever he should write or type or spell the word "work" for any reason, he would use an uppercase "W" as its beginning.
 

To do work carefully and well

Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation

To do work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself with God's will in my work.  I become an instrument for God to work through me.
 

Working in cooperation with the deepest forces of life

Rick Jarow Your Life's Work

If we open up to our vitality and to the sense of urgency that flows within us, we will have the pleasure of experiencing ourselves living and working in cooperation with the deepest forces of life.
 

No one is useless

Charles Dickens

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.
 

To transform work into play

Nan Merrill Nan Merrill’s Journals

To learn to concentrate without effort
and to transform work into play
I need to have and hold a zone of silence
in my soul.

The manner in which we carry out all our work

The Monks of New Skete

The manner in which we carry out all our work has a direct bearing on our spiritual health.
 

If only he could work faster

Susan Vreeland The Girl in Hyacinth Blue

If only he could work faster.  Yet if he did work faster, how could he produce paintings grounded in deep beds of contemplation, the only way living things could be stilled long enough to understand them?  And wasn't everything he painted--a breadbasket, a pitcher, a jewelry box, a copper pan--wasn’t it all living?
 

Not fatigued from overwork

Marv and Nancy Hiles All the Days of My Life

A hidden river runs beneath the conscious layers of our lives.  We become fatigued not from overwork, but from how much energy it takes to stage our lives in order to drown out the sounds of the river inside us.
 

Those who have sought and found how to serve

Albert Schweitzer

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

When one is conscious during work

undefined The Yoga of Work

It is not vast quantities of mechanical work that appeals to the Divine, but it is the link with the divine consciousness established through that work that matters.  This consideration of the spirit in which the work is done is of the utmost relevance to all of us who want to progress toward divine consciousness.  When one is conscious during work, that quality of consciousness is naturally imparted to what one is working with or upon.  Such work retains the vibration of that person and they link others immediately with that cause.
 

The old masters didn't care whether anyone could see their flaws

Iain Pears

"We don’t really have to do a perfect job."

"Nobody will be able to tell, though."

"That’s not the point, not the point at all.  The old masters didn't care whether anyone could see their flaws or not.  They wanted to do as well as they could, because their work was a gift to God, who deserved their best.  That’s all gone; now what's important is whether anyone will notice the difference, and how much it will all cost.  It changes the spirit of the building forever."
 

Work that is being done attentively and well

Miriam Therese Winter Out of the Depths

Ludmilla taught me that we can pray anywhere, during any kind of work that is being done attentively and well and to the best of our ability.  In such work, God is present.  We only have to know this and try to give it our heart.  Many people wish to have spiritual development without obstacles or even effort, and so they will never understand God’s love or the poverty of our humanity.
 

July/August 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 7)

Summer Blessings, dear friends!  Vacation season is here and many of us are traveling in the literal sense during these months.  Opportunities for rest, relaxation, and fun are real gifts, and we enjoy visiting  new places and exploring unfamiliar surroundings.  As we travel in the world, our spiritual journey is ongoing as well, down at the heart of everything.  It's wonderful to have opportunities to  enjoy all we see and hear and taste and feel outwardly, but let us also be attentive to what is happening on the inner path.  Inner and outer often overlap, and we may become aware of marvelous cues and synchronicities in the outer world that offer opportunities for much growth and progress on our inner journey.

The path with heart is an inner one

Jean Shinoda Bolen Crones Don't Whine

The outer path we take is public knowledge, but the path with heart is an inner one. The two come together when who we are that is seen in the world coincides with who we deeply are. As we grow wiser, we become aware that the important forks in the road are usually not about choices that will show up on any public record; they are decisions and struggles to do with choosing love or fear; anger or forgiveness; pride or humility. They are soul-shaping choices.
 

No glimse of the light without walking the path

Peace Pilgrim

There is no glimpse of the light without walking the path.  You can’t get it from anyone else, nor can you give it to anyone.  You take whatever steps seem easiest for you, and as you take a few steps it will be easier to take a few more.
 

A God seeker is a person on a journey

James Fenhagen More Than Wanderers

A God seeker is a person on a journey.  When the thirst has been awakened, we are no longer persons wandering aimlessly about, but persons who have begun to discern the bare outlines of a path.  We become more than wanderers.  It is a journey based upon the assumption that there is more to life than meets the eye.
 

Charting a new path to the future

Joan Chittister Monasteries of the Heart

There is a time in every life
when the very act
of looking back and taking stock
becomes essential
to going forward.

Without the light
that shines out of the darkness
of the past,
we cannot chart
a new path
to the future.
 

A spiritual journey is not a competitive event

Kerry M. Olitzky, Carol Ochs Jewish Spiritual Guidance

Everything we need for growing into a full, rich relationship with God is already available in our lives.  We need to pray, stay open, and not become discouraged.  A spiritual journey is not a competitive event; we can all be on a spiritual quest.  God comes to each of us in the native language of our soul.  Gradually the language grows and expands, but no one grows in just the same way as someone else.  We need to accept ourselves as we are and keep ourselves open to being changed and shaped by a life lived in growing intimacy with God.
 

To journey hopefully

Chinese Proverb

To journey hopefully is better than to arrive.
 

The real journey in life is interior

Thomas Merton

The real journey in life is interior. 
It is a matter of growth, deepening,
and of an ever greater surrender to the
creative love and grace in our hearts.
 

We come to a crossroad

Robert Wicks

With each discovery of truth about ourselves, we come to a crossroad on our journey toward God.  One path leads to denial and despair . .. the other to holiness.
 

There comes a time in the spiritual journey

Angeles Arrien

There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place . . .  And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom, and love, it’s the right choice.
 

Completed the journey at last

Thomas Keating Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit

We may enjoy an experience of God that is so delightful that we may think all our troubles are over and we have at last completed the journey.  Then after a few hours or a few days we find ourselves on the spiral staircase again and cannot even remember the pleasures of that transient experience of divine union.  The whole purpose of this alternation is to bring the soul to the total transformation of love.
 

I came to rest at the altar of the stars

Rabindranath Tagore The Borderlands - 9

From the forest branches fading
        birdsong offered
Self-sacrifice to a huge silence.
Dark formlessness settled over all
        diversity
Of land and water.  As shadows, as particles,
        my body
Fused with endless night.  I came to rest
At the altar of the stars.  Alone, amazed,
        I stared
Upwards with hands clasped and said,
        "Sun, you have removed
Your rays: show now your loveliest,
        kindlier form
That I may see the Person who dwells in
        me as in you."
 

Our surface-level living is the symbolic acting out of a deep inward pilgrimage

S. T. Georgiou The Isle of Monte Christo

Much of life…is about awakening to the interior experience.  In our day-to-day living, we come to see how all of our physical journeying is not simply a temporal exercise, a transitory, earthly trek, but increasingly points to a shared and liberating inner passage . . .  As Christianity and all the great religious traditions of the world testify, our surface-level living is the symbolic acting out of a deep inward pilgrimage leading to -- and beyond -- the gates of the heart.
 

There is no there anywhere

Marv and Nancy Hiles All the Days of My Life

There is no there anywhere, no destination, only ways through,
passages, resting spots, doors that swing open to where
a vision is hammered out, painted, written, sung or prayed
behind the facade of the common.
 

June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Warm greetings, dear friends of silence!  We are having most unsettled weather here in Missouri in recent weeks, and in some ways it reflects what we must all feel at times in our lives.  You know the feeling: scattered, as though we were being pulled in too many directions at once and feeling too many claims on our time.  At such times, we may feel particularly unsettled and badly in need of healing, being knit back together into a calm serenity.  "Healing" can have many meanings, of course.   We think first of being cured of a disease, but there is a deeper and more holistic meaning of the word, too.  When we sink into the depths of ourselves in sacred silence, we find what we need to be truly healed, in ways our conscious minds may have not yet perceived.  May we experience the healing we need, in whatever form that may take, as we enter the silence together.

Healing is a journey deep within oneself

Diane Mariechild Mother Wit

Healing is a journey deep within oneself -- a search for soul, the essence of the self.  It seeks to balance the inner and outer worlds to connect and to integrate.  Healing is the reuniting of the body, mind and spirit.

Healing is more than eliminating disease symptoms

Nathaniel Altman Sacred Water

Healing is more than eliminating disease symptoms; it is a process of achieving wholeness, alignment, and integration that encompasses every level of our being.  Healing encourages self-awareness and enables us to express our unique potential more fully in our work, study, and relationships with ourselves and others.  The healing journey not only helps us connect to our own inner rhythms, but also brings us closer to our spiritual nature and the world around us.

Responding to suffering in ways as unique as their fingerprints

Rachel Naomi Remen Kitchen Table Wisdom

At first I was surprised that people with the same disease had such very different stories.  Later I became deeply moved by these stories, by the people and the meaning they found in their problems, by the unsuspected strengths, the depths of love and devotion, the rich and human tapestry initiated by the pathology I was studying and treating. . .  These stories engaged me at another, more hidden point.  I too suffer from an illness . . .   I listened to human beings who were suffering, and responding to their suffering in ways as unique as their fingerprints.  Their stories were inspiring moving, important.  In time, the truth in them began to heal me.

The pure raw heart has the power to heal the world

Jack Kornfield, C. Trungpa

When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty.  If you search for the awakened heart, there is nothing but tenderness.  You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness.  It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed.  It is the pure raw heart that has the power to heal the world.

The best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way

Mark Nepo The Book of Awakening

Underneath all we are taught, there is a voice that calls to us beyond what is reasonable, and in listening to that flicker of spirit, we often find deep healing.  This is the voice of embodiment calling us to live our lives like sheet music played, and it often speaks to us briefly in moments of deep crisis.  Sometimes it is so faint we mistake its whisper for wind through leaves.  But taking it into the heart of our pain, it can often open the paralysis of our lives. . . . the best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way, until it ceases to be an obstacle.

Healing is not forcing the sun to shine

Stephen and Ondrea Levine

Healing is not forcing the sun to shine, but letting go of that which blocks the light.

There is healing in the universe

Clair McDermott

There is healing in the universe.
There is a fabric that holds things together.
When it is ready . . . in its own good time,
shall it not bind together . . . all of us?

He lives long who enjoys life and bears no jealousy of others

Shirali Mislimov

I was never in a hurry in my life.  He lives long who enjoys life and bears no jealousy of others, whose heart harbors no malice or anger, who sings a lot and cries a little, who rises and retires with the sun, who likes to work, and who knows how to rest.

Healing is the intuitive art of wooing nature

W. H. Auden

"Healing," Papa would tell me, "is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature."

Healing is bringing oneself into harmony with the universe

Odaugh Shanley Toffolo

Healing is bringing oneself into harmony with the universe and the Divine creative force.  It makes us whole and happy, content . . . and happiness is heaven.

To embrace one's brokenness and to embrace one's healing

Robert Benson Living Prayer

To embrace one's brokenness, whatever it looks like, whatever has caused it, carries within it the possibility that one might come to embrace one's healing, and then one might come to the next step: to embrace another and their brokenness and their possibility for being healed.  To avoid one’s brokenness is to turn one’s back on the possibility that the Healer might be at work here, perhaps for you, perhaps for another.

Healing is embracing what is most feared

Jean Achterberg

Healing is embracing what is most feared;
healing is opening what has been closed,
softening what has hardened into obstruction,
healing is learning to trust life.

The more I can love everything, the more health I am going to experience

Carl Simonton

The more I can love everything -- the trees, the land, the water, my fellow men, women and children, and myself -- the more health I am going to experience and the more of myself I am going to be . . .

Healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well

Richard Carlson, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Healers on Healing

Healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again.  Rather, it means achieving a balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. . . .  At the end of their lives [five-year-old children with leukemia] they have little or no pain.  They are emotionally sound, and on an intellectual level they can share things it is almost impossible to believe could come from a child.  To me this is a healing, although they are not well from our earthly point of view.

May 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 5)

We warmly welcome you, dear friends, to Still Point Mountain Retreat, the new home of Friends of Silence.  We hope you will come and discover the “still point” of your “turning world,” where in the words of T.S. Eliot there is “neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent nor decline,” and where “except for the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

Nestled next to the 1400-acre nature preserve of Rolling Ridge, near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Still Point offers a secluded setting for personal retreat, families, small groups, and occasional special-topic retreats.  Still Point’s  3-bedroom, 2- bath log cabin, 1-room guest cottage, 2 teepees, and camping space offer sacred space to reflect, pray, relax, and enjoy the beauty of wilderness.

Check the new Friends of Silence website for information on facilitated group retreats, private retreat space, spiritual direction and other resources.  

I have learned to treat my garden as the sacred place it is

Cynthia Keyes The Sacred Garden

I have learned to treat my garden as the sacred place it is and it continually nourishes me both in body and in spirit Earth is sacred too, and whatever we do to her will come back to us many times over. If we treat her as merely a resource and a place to throw our refuse, we will reap only death and disease. If we treat her as the sacred place she is, we will reap the benefits of living on sacred ground.;

Nature is a sacred space that has the power to draw us out

Joan Borysenko A Pocketful of Miracles

Nature is a sacred space that has the power to draw us out of our small mind into the one Big Mind of God.  During warm weather, praying and meditating outside in nature can naturally enhance your practice.  You can pray anywhere, even on the subway, but whenever you find yourself in a place that feels sacred, you have already made the connection with God.

We become aware of the sacred because it manifests itself as something wholly different

Mircea Eliade

We become aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane . . . something sacred shows itself to us . . . something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane" world.

The sacred cannot be precisely defined

Anthony Lawlor The Temple in the House

The sacred cannot be precisely defined.  Each of us perceives it through the lens of a unique personal history.  For me, sacredness is an experience of the inner radiance of life, the unseen force that transforms and nourishes the physical world but is never limited by it.  There is something more to it, a mystery that is never totally grasped.

Where you can find yourself

Joseph Campbell

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

Shh! Come in within

Mary Frances Reis

Shh!
Come in
within
 
I AM here
 
take off your shoes
kneel down
and
worship
wordlessly
in this
holy place
called
prayer.

The divine presence sensed in sacred places

Jane Hope The Secret Language of the Soul

The divine presence that we sense in sacred places is often reinforced by architecture and decoration that reflect our aspirations toward the heavens.  A sacred place requires a clear spiritual focus and separation from its physical surroundings.  The word "temple" (and the associated activity of contemplation) -- Latin templum --means a piece of land marked off from ordinary uses and dedicated to the divine.  Sacred structures provide expressions of, rather than merely a shell for, numinous experience

We step into this sacred space as we walk into life

Roger Housden Sacred America

Frederick Franck turned to the door of the building, a massive wooden sculpture in the form of the sun and its rays, and pushed it open.  I saw that it turned on a central axis, so that only one half of the door was open at any one time.  To remind us, he murmured, that we step into this sacred space as we walk into life, alone and silently . . .  I looked around me and marveled at this ninety-year-old man from whose hand had sprung everything I could see.  He had carved the door, made the stained-glass windows and every other object in sight.  Pacem in Terris, I realized, was one man’s act of artistic faith: a work of art outside the parameters of the art world, and also a religious statement unconfined by any religion.

Never forget where liest the holiest power of all

Peter Russell

Be aware of the sacred site . . .
Sacred sites are sacred because our
     response to them is sacred.
There is a resonance between the sacred
     within and the sacred without . . .

The sacred is within our hearts . . .

Visit sacred sites, yes.  Bathe in the
     resonance, inspire the divine.
But never forget where lies the holiest
     power of all.   

When human participate in ceremony they enter a sacred space

Sun Bear

When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them.

April 2011 (Vol. XIV, No. 4)

Warm, Springtime Greetings, dear friends!  The changing of seasons always brings to mind that well known passage in Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven."  Consider the vast meaning within so few words!  How does nature know?  How do those perennials we plant know when to begin to grow again, the trees to begin budding and leafing?  How do the birds know when to migrate back to their summer homes, to begin mating and nesting?  The will to grow and expand is directed by a life force beyond our human comprehension.  We can only observe in awe and gratitude the world our Creator has given us.  As we fall silent before such miracles, let us ask for help in caring for the earth and its treasures that they may continue to sustain us and all future generations in abundance and in beauty.

A tree bathed in sunlight is a life and has a tale to tell

Hermann Hesse Peter Camenzind

"It doesn’t matter to most people that the wind sings in the trees or that a mountain shimmers in the sunlight.  But you find life in all this, a life you can partake of."

I replied that no one understands nature: a tree bathed in sunlight, a weathered stone, an animal, a mountain, each has life, has a tale to tell, is a life, suffers, endures, experiences joy, dies -- but we
don’t understand it.

Going to the Deep Ground that underlies all things

Sue Monk Kidd The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

A circle of trees . . . I felt I was bringing the journey home to the ordinary dimensions of my life, rooting it in the place I lived every day.  I lay back on the earth and looked up through the branches of an oak, feeling suddenly like the sun was my own heart pulsing up there with light.  Wind swirled, and it seemed to me it was my own breath billowing through the branches.  The crocus bulbs were buried in my tissue, the cedars growing from my body.  The birds flew inside me.  Stones sat along my bones . . . a jubilant, stunning loss of boundary, a deeper sense of oneness than I’d ever felt.

I knew that I was part of one vast, universal quilt; I knew that this quilt was itself, the Holy Thing, the manifestation of the Divine One.  And I loved this universal quilt, every stitch, color, and fiber, with a heartbreaking love.  It was one clear moment in time, like going to the Deep Ground that underlies all things and seeing, really seeing, what is and being pierced by the unbounded nature of it.

We live in wisdom who see ourselves in all and all in us

John Perkins Shape Shifting

As we walked in silence a passage from the Bhagavad Gita came to me:  "We live in wisdom who see ourselves in all and all in us.  We are forever free who have broken out of the ego cage of 'I and mine.' "  The Bhagavad Gita described a voice within all of us that tells us each the same thing: what we want is not money, fame, or material possessions, but a world of peace, hearts filled with love, and an earth where the air and water are clean, the environment healthy.  We want to rid ourselves of those unwanted habits and negative thoughts that prohibit us from living in peace with ourselves, the environment and our neighbor.

The stones and rain and flowers call us

Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek

If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say.  Maybe they call -- call us -- and we don’t hear them.  When will people’s ears open, boss?  When shall we have our eyes open to see?  When shall we open our arms to embrace everything -- stones, rain, flowers, and men?  What d'you think about that, boss?  And what do your books have to say about it.

This earth is my sister

Susan Griffin Woman and Nature

This earth is my sister: I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.

The earth delights to feel your bare feet

Kahlil Gibran

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Blessed are the men and women who are planted on your earth

Stephen Mitchell The Enlightened Heart

Blessed are the men and women
    who are planted on Your earth in Your garden,
Who grow as Your trees and flowers grow,
    who transform their darkness to light.
Their roots plunge into darkness;
    their faces turn toward the light.
All those who love You are beautiful;
    they overflow with Your presence
    so that they can do nothing but good.
There is infinite space in Your garden;
    all men, all women are welcome here;
    all they need do is enter.

In kinship with all that lives

Jean-Yves Leloup The Sacred Embrace of Jesus and Mary

To see all things at their origin, their beginning, puts us in kinship with all that lives: trees, birds, stars seem foreign to us only inasmuch as we perceive them outside of our common origin with them.  To drink at the source of all that lives and breathes expands the heart and makes the blood sing, echoing the song of all the vital fluids in the world.  To dwell near all beginnings is to draw infinitely near to that which creates both the unity and the diversity of all beings.

Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature

A Winnebago Wise Saying

Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.

Be a gardner. Dig a ditch.

Julian of Norwich undefined

Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.

Emanating a subtle, precious light

Yuan-Sou

The mountains, rivers, earth
  grasses, trees, and forests
are always emanating a subtle,
  precious light,
day and night, always emanating
  a subtle, precious sound,
demonstrating and expounding
  to all people
the unsurpassed, ultimate truth.

New sights of Nature make me rejoice

Marie Curie

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

March 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 3)

Blessings of Wisdom to all of you, dear friends of silence!  The term "sophia perennis" (perennial wisdom) seems to imply that wisdom is always with us, and yet sometimes it seems to be so sadly lacking.  Emily Dickinson wrote about truth, "The truth must dazzle gradually or every (hu)man be blind."  Perhaps something similar is true of wisdom: it comes gradually, or it would be beyond our understanding.  But perhaps, also, we too often do not look for it, or even think about it.  For wisdom is ever with us, in the deepest part of our being, and all around us in the natural world, where we can see it at play if we but pay attention.  Internally we can find it by sinking into our silent depths and listening.  May Wisdom abound in the world!
 

O Highest Wisdom who circles the great circle

Hildegard of Bingen

O Highest Wisdom,
who circles the great circle,
who envisions the whole world
as one living path,
you have three wings.
One soars above the sky,
another moistens the ground with sweat,
while a third flies
everywhere at once.
O Wisdom, we sing your praise.

The wisdom to know when to speak

Susan Muto Words of Wisdom for our World

Loving communication implies prayerful surrender to the word of God speaking in ourselves and others.  Out of this respectful openness there emerges the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent.  When we do have to say something, we do so wisely and moderately, and to the appropriate person.  In persistently trying to see the other against the background of the Sacred, we preserve inner peace.
 

The deep wisdom way

Angeles Arrien

In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery.  It’s the place of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.

Wisdom is gained by standing still

Anonymous

Wisdom is not gained by traveling afar, but by standing still; not by thought, but by the absence of thought.

Resplendent nd eternal is Wisdom

Nan Merrill Walking With Wisdom

Resplendent and eternal is Wisdom,
readily perceived by those who listen
in the Silence of the heart.
Wisdom hastens to make Herself known;
She is available to all who love and seek Her;
who awakens Her from within
will not be disappointed;
for Wisdom awaits at the threshold.

Wisdom is sweeter than honey

Queen Makeda

Wisdom is
sweeter than honey,
brings more joy
than wine,
illumines
more than the sun,
is more precious
than jewels.
She causes
the ears to hear
and the heart to comprehend.

Awaken wisdom within

Nan Merrill Walking With Wisdom

Awaken Wisdom within and let it flow out to the world like a gardener sowing seeds of life.

Those hidden wisdoms

Gerald L. Schroeder The Hidden Face of God

There is an ancient tradition that when Divine Revelation comes into the world, only one part is given as prophetic writings.  The words are only a part of the message.  The other part is placed within nature, the wisdoms inherent in the Creation.  Only when we understand those hidden wisdoms will we be able to read between the prophetic lines and fully understand the message.

Wisdom is knowledge illumined by love

Benjamin Creme Maitreya's Mission

Wisdom is an attribute of the soul and unfolds naturally as the soul manifests through the personality.  Knowledge can be taught; wisdom is loving understanding or knowledge illumined by love.

We each contain an enduring spark of Wisdom

Charles Garfield Wisdom Circles

We each contain an enduring spark of that Wisdom at the heart of all creation.  Isolated and unsupported, it is but a small spark.  United with others, those sparks grow into a flame of illumination and strength for us all.

Each part of the world holds wisdom

Carol Shaeffer

Each part of the world holds wisdom, a key to reigniting humanity’s pure spark.

We attain wisdom by learning to see things as they are

Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

We attain wisdom not by creating ideals but by learning to see things clearly, as they are.

Wisdom has broken through

Adyashanti Empty Dancing

Everybody has had transcendent wisdom break into the mind.  When you’ve wracked your brain with a problem for a long time and then, for some reason, you’ve stopped struggling, and then all of a sudden you got an "Aha! That’s it," where does that come from?  Wisdom has broken through.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Joan Chittester The Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?  Knowledge gives us information.  Wisdom gives us light on the way.  Knowledge is skill.  Wisdom is a quality.  Knowledge can be learned.  Wisdom can only be distilled from those places in life where knowledge is not enough to really explain what was happening to us, or information failed to resolve what was happening to the other.

Power without wisdom is tyranny

Iain Pears

Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine as well as through public service.  The one is incomplete without the other.  Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is ineffective.

An ancient river of inner wisdom

Unknown

An ancient river of inner wisdom flows like limitless living water in deep recesses of our being; this activating wisdom wells up in every age to inspire all who have open minds and are able to hear and receive Sophia's sacred energy of new life, light, and purpose.

Pages