Nan Merrill

June 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 6)

EVERY BLESSING, dear friends! As we enter into the summer season of fullness, may the music of our hearts become One in a symphony of souls united in the Silence. May we pause each day in the silence to listen to the deepest Song in our hearts ... then sing it in our actions and interactions in work and leisure.

The poet, the artist, the musician

John F. Kennedy

The poet, the artist, the musician, continue the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between people, reminding us of the universality of our feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding us that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

I started dancing to the tune of a heavenly drummer

Richard J. Foster Prayer
What happened next is difficult to put into words... A Spirit of adoration and celebration sprang up within me, and I started dancing to the tune of a heavenly drummer and singing words unknown to my conscious mind. I sang with my mind too — hymns and psalms springing up from distant memory as well as spiritual songs that cascaded down in impromptu splendor. Thanksgivings poured forth for all things great and small. Praises joined the river in joyous exaltation. It felt like I was being invited to join, in my feeble way, into the ceaseless paean of praise that ascends before the throne of God.

Sing and your life will continue

Mark Nepo The Book of Awakening

Song is not a luxury, but a necessary way of being in the world. If you are cut off, in pain, estranged, numb — sing, give voice to anything. It needn't sound pretty. Simply, bravely, open despite the difficulty, and let what is in out, and what is out in. Sing and your life will continue.

The face of this singing nun would forever be unknown to us

Denise Levertov Tesserae

They sang a capella: one voice began to mount like a skylark and detach itself from the rest, from those mingled voices which together sounded well, but from whose conjunction with this single one soared in an intensity of beauty — a voice so clear and just, yet vibrant with such warm sweetness, I have remembered it always. The fact that this great, this glorious and rare voice was singing behind bars, that the face and identity of this singing nun would forever be unknown to us, shadowed the music. Mainly, we were awed to think this treasure was so hidden.

In a sense great music exists for the sake of its pauses

Christopher Isherwood The Wishing Tree

In a sense great music exists for the sake of its pauses; for instance, the pauses that occur in the middle of a Beethoven symphony. These pauses are of course quite unlike bits of ordinary silence, because the whole symphony has led up to them — they are held and defined, and the music goes on the other side of them. Such pauses are silence charged with meaning. Music transcends music by producing charged silence.

What is the song of my life?

Edward J. Farrell No One Else an Sing My Song

Each of us is a new creation, a singularity, a facet of the glory of God, Love's presence made visible. "The greatest glory of God is a person fully alive." Everything in creation has íts own language, its own radiance, its gift to the universe. Dante's music of the spheres, the movement of the planets and stars in their orbíts, is an unrivaled symphony. And I am not a single note, sound, or chord -- I am a symphony of a lífetime. What is the song of my life, the inner music of my being, the background music whích softly accompanies me? Each thing has its own song and each sings it ín silence. What a chorus when each life song is blended into and harmonized with all the others!

May your days be filled with merry music

Anonymous
May your days be filled with merry music;
May your life be filled with sacred songs!
May the Great Conductor lead you on ...

My heart makes songs

Sara Teasdale

It is my heart that makes songs, not I.

If I separated the religious goal from the musical one

Sofia Gubaidulian

I can't think of any way to explain the existence of art other than as a means to express something greater than ourselves. I can't reach a single musícal decision except wíth the goal of making a connectíon to God. If I separated the religious goal from the musical one, music would have no meaning for me.

And then your heart breaks open?

Anne Lamott Traveling Mercies

The silence of the marsh was so profound that it could have been the flip side of the singing in my church. Just last Sunday the people had sung the old spiritual, "Go Down, Moses," a cappella because the pianist was gone, and a bunch of people were crying, singing very loudly with their eyes closed, and the singing of that cry of a song was a wonderful form of communion. How come you can hear a chord, and then another chord, and then your heart breaks open?

Sing the Song of your life

Anonymous
How can you keep from singing the Song of your life? Make it LOVE!

Something about a song is nearly irresistible

Kay Collette Spirit's Songs

Something about a song ia nearly irresistible in that it reaches both the mnd and the heart, the former with meaning, the latter with beauty. The Spírit found her way into my shut-off heart through the songs I learned through that very same heart.

Her Beloved is silent music

St. John of the Cross Spiritual Canticle

In that nocturnal tranquility and silence and in knowledge of the divine light, the soul becomes aware of Wisdom's wonderful harmony and sequence in the variety of her creatures and works. Each of them is endowed wíth a certain likeness of God and in its own way gives voice to what of God is in it. So creatures will be for the soul a harmonious symphony of sublime music surpassing all concerts and melodies of the world. Thus there ís in it the sweetness of music and the quietude of silence. AccordÍngly, she says that her Beloved is silent music because in the Beloved she knows and enjoys this symphony of spiritual music.

The voice of God whispers in the heart

Stephen Crane

The voice of God whispers in the heart
So softly
That the soul pauses,
Making no noise,
And strives for these melodies,
Distant, sighing, like the faintest breath,
And all the being is still to hear.

Naught are yet but songs, and as ye sing, ye are

Samuel L. Lewis Crescent and Heart
With a song came the Word and by music it is sustained, And the soul ... is a note of revelation. Naught are ye but songs, and as ye sing, ye are ...

Creation began with a big band

Bernie S. Siegel Prescriptions for Living

While I was writing about silence and explosíons and the moment, of creation, I made an ínteresting typing error. I wrote "big band"" instead of "big bang." I'd like to think that ít was not an error but the voice of creation typing for me. From now on that's my theory on the origin of everything. Creation began with a big band, and ever since there has been rhythm, style and beauty throughout the uníverse. Our job is to look and listen for the big song, and then to join in, following the beat established by the Conductor leading the big band.

May 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 5)

BLESSINGS, dear friends of the heart! The heart: where the Divine Guet awaits our listening silence. May we learn to dele ever more deeply into the contemplative Silence within that links our soul like a vertical beam of light to heaven and earth. Our lives beome more joyful, peaceful, and loving, increasing our reverence and honoring of ALL life.

Silent contemplation

Marian Scheele

In silent contemplation, the intellect is bypassed, and we are taken into a transcendent dimension understood only by the spirit. In silence our spirit will recognize the Beloved's Spirit.

See www.tentmaker.org/articles/TheFaceofChrist.html

Contemplative prayer is an exchange of hearts

Thomas Keating

Contemplative prayer is not a conversation in words, but an exchange of hearts.

Every age has a need of the contemplative life

James Bissett Pratt The Religious Consciousness
Every age has a need of "the contemplative life," and ours is no exception to the rule. The soul needs a chance for spreading its wings, for looking beyond itself, beyond the immediate environment, and for quiet inner growth.

Cultivating a listening heart

Molly Vass-Lehman Seeds of Awakening

An attitude of contemplation helps us to see the quiet beauty that is all around us in the world, in the faces of the people in our lives or the way a cat stretches, as well as in the mundane tasks that take up so much of our time. We can begin to cultivate the "listening heart." This contemplative way of seeing, hearing, and feeling brings richness and depth of meaning to our lives. It allows us to know what is real and essential. It helps us move toward freedom and wholeness as we see more clearly into the truth of the moment.

Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are

Sue Monk Kidd When the Heart Waits

As the conversation turned to waiting, Brother Anthony leaned forward in his chair. "Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are," he explained. "People recoil from it because they don't want to be present to themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths there is fear, fear of the dark chaos within ourselves.

Brother Anthony was exactly right. Ultimately, we are fleeing our own dark chaos. We are fleeing ourselves.

Loving infusion of God

St. John of the Cross
Contemplation is a secret, peaceful and loving infusion of God, which, if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the spirit of Love.

Contemplation plumes her feathers

John Milton

And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude
Where, with her best nurse Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.

To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see

S. Marie Beha

To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so it has its own rhythms of darkness, of dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a live of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.

See www.jesuits.ca/orientations/deepercall.html

A mountain is an image of the soul as it lifts itself up in contemplation

Theodore of Studios

It seems to me that a mountain is an image of the soul as it lifts itself up in contemplation. For in the same manner as the mountain towers above the valleys and lowlands at its foot, so does the soul of the one who prays mount into the higher regions up to God like an eagle taking wing.

Loving regard

Alan Jones

If we are designed to be in communion with God, if God is our Lover, then we have to indulge in the things that lovers do. The lover wishes always to be in the loved one's presence, to gaze and behold. The name for this loving regard is contemplation. 

To be a contemplative

Joan Chittester Illuminated Life

To be a contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in time with the cosmic voice of God. We must become aware of the sacred in every element of life. We must bring beauty to birth in a poor and plastic world. We must grow in concert with the God who is within. We must restore the human community. We must be healers in a harsh society.

Contemplating the Indwelling Presence

George Maloney That Your Joy May Be Complete

Contemplating the Indwelling Presence, you are given new eyes of faith, hope, and love to see God's grandeur bursting forth... All things cry out to you that God is here. This place is indeed holy! With eyes of a child filled with wonder and joy, you open to God's living revelation in all things. You believe nothing can keep out the loving, presence of God as love in all things. As you act on that living faith, it becomes a reality. Every moment with all your material involvements allows you to become more and more united with the Indwelling Presence of God, the triune community of I-Thou in a We of self-giving persons.

What is the contemplative life about?

Anonymous

The contemplative life is about
knowing, loving and listening
to all of life
and to God in it ...

Contemplative life does not have to be seen as a special vocation

Beatrice Bruteau The Contemplative Life

Contemplative life does not have to be seen as a special vocation reserved for some special souls only; it is open to all, and all are invited to enjoy it. You do not have to be in special circumstances to practice it, because it consists not so much in what you do as in the attitude and the perspective in which your ordinary actions are performed. It is a life of wonder. The contemplative is one who look around at the world and marvels at reality. We are living as contemplatives when we are thoroughly alive ourselves and when we are alert and sensitive to the reality of other beings and disposed to appreciate them.

Contemplation is a vast space, open on all sides

Henry Corbin Temple and Contemplation

It is significant that the Latin word "templum" originally meant a vast space, open on all sides, from which one could survey the whole surrounding landscape as far as the horizon. This is what is meant to CONTEMPLATE: to "set one's sights on" Heaven from the temple that defines the field of vision... The temple is the place, the organ of vision.

The contemplative is a seed of silence planted amidst the jungle of noise

Frank X. Tuoti Why Not Be a Mystic

The world has become noise, silence its orphan child. The contemplative is a seed of silence planted amidst the jungle of noise, one whose harvest will come at a later time, perhaps a later age. The contemplative is a witness to silence, affirming that all things come out of silence and must return to silence to be healed and re-created.

April 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 4)

BLESSINGS, dear friends, as we enter another life-giving Springtime season of new blossomings bursting from the earth and, hopefully, arising in our hearts as well. In the silence of early April mornings, listen for the promise of winter's gestate seeds awakening. What flowers await birth in your inner soul garden? Be still ... in the silence, you will know.

The earth does not belong to us

Chief Seattle
The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls all who dwell on earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

We as a people are only now beginning to learn to read the language of the earth once more

Wendy Crockett Sweetwater Wisdom

We as a people are only now beginning to learn to read the language of the earth once more. We are beginning to see what our actions create. Since the beginning there have been those who have listened to the earth's song. We are a note in the discord or the harmony of this world. The way we walk is the way it becomes. Speak in anger and anger will come to you, speak with caring and love and these too shall be drawn to you. Our choices in action are sacred. To choose to work our way through our emotions and actions in a good way can be a most sacred act. Each action affects all others.

I am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows

Hildegard of Bingen
I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows. I gleam in the waters. I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With every breeze, as with invisible life that contains everything, I awaken everything to life. I am the breeze that nurtures all things green. I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits. I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

The old tree of eternal creative life

Richard Bachtold

The old tree of eternal creative life lives
with an open heart, very deep roots,
and many branches waiting to
transform into new life.

Faced with the job of healing the planet

Machaella Small Wright

All universal truths are available to us. All universal knowledge. Nothing is withheld. Our soul has a limitless capacity to enfold and know all. This is part of the dynamic of the soul. We are faced with the job of healing the planet, healing it from the multitude of messes we have created. The only way this can happen is for people to change their attitudes toward nature As we each open to the broader reality of nature, our attitudes will automatically shift, and how we treat our immediate environment will alter to accommodate those shifts in attitude. We will live our lives differently. We will have different motivations for what we do. We will become active co-creative partners in life. We will behave as if the God of ALL life mattered.

I found a comfortable spot under a tree

Henry Stark Sacred Journey
I found a comfortable spot under a tree, far from the bees, and I closed my eyes. My mind cleared. All my fears, anger, and frustration fell away. A sudden calmness pervaded me and I felt in total harmony with my surroundings. No longer compelled to fight the perceived obstacles and dangers, I recognized a very natural and constant order. I had a tremendous realization that there was a natural harmony here in the mountains, and everywhere, and that for the first time in my life I felt that I was truly a part of God's universe.

In all of nature

John Hay

In all of nature there can be nothing more expressive than silence.

The forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other

Thomas Berry Earth Letters

In the early evening we see the stars begin to appear as the sun disappears over the horizon. The light of day gives way to the darkness of night. A stillness, a healing quiet comes over the landscape. It's a moment when some other world makes itself known, a numinous presence beyond human understanding. We experience the vast realms of space overwhelming the limitations of our human minds. As the sky turns golden and the clouds reflect the blazing colors of evening, we participate for a moment in the forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other.

What did you find in the fields today

Hilda Rostron

What did you find in the fields today,
you who have wandered so far away?

I found a wind-flower, small and frail,
and a crocus cup like a holy grail;
I found a hill that was clad in gorse,
a new-built nest, and a streamlet's source;
I saw a star and a moonlit tree;
I listened... I think God spoke to me.

How glorious is Your dwelling place

Anonymous

How glorious is Your dwelling place,
O Loving Creator of the universe!

Saint de Terre

Anonymous

In the Middle Ages saunterers were considered saint de terre as they wandered the countryside.

The secret of secrets

Anna Akhmatova

Sunset in the ethereal waves:
I cannot tell if the day
is ending, or the world, or if
the secret of secrets is inside me again.

To look at nature as a part of myself

Ayya Khema I Give You My Life

The three months of solitude were of the greatest significance for me. I came away from them very much strengthened — ready to share my insights with people who were interested in hearing them. Still today, I have the sounds of the jungle in my ears: the cries of the monkeys and birds and the wind rushing through the banana leaves. But there were also times of utter silence, at dawn and twilight. I took walks in the jungle in order to look at nature as a part of myself.

The solitary globe of night

Camille Flammarion

The solitary globe of night
pours out its calm and clear light
in the midst of the silence and
contemplation of nature.

You living garden

Therese of Lisieux

You set before me the book of Nature; and I understood how all the flowers created by You are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, Nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers... It is the same in the world of souls, Your living garden.

Earth as living poetry

Henry David Thoreau

The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, a stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by biologists and antiquarians chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit — not a fossil earth but a living earth.

March 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 3)

WARM GREETINGS, dear friends, as we continue to journey together united in the Silence. Blessed are you who have a friend or two with whom you can commune in silene, share and reverence one another's deepest heart-song, and call each other to be faithful to its inner truth ... a beneficial way to remain faithful to the Call of the Beloved.

Faith doesn't mean that you never doubt

Orson Scott Card Sarah

When Sarah gathered herself together enough to speak without weeping, she had to ask:

"How did you know my most terrible secret? Is my lack of faith in God so obvious?"

"My lady, I assumed that you would have such thoughts simply because any human being in your position would HAVE to have them. You give no outward sign of it. And it is not lack of faith. You can't stop thoughts like that from entering your head. Faith doesn't mean that you never doubt. Faith only means that you never act upon your doubts."

February 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 1)

Winter: q quieting time to rest in the warmth of our heart's hearth. BLESSINGS TO ALL as we enter another new year, another new beginning to awaken ever more fully to Divine Loe at work in and through us. Each one of us is in need of true inspiration ... to have the indwelling FIRE reignited so that we can live with enthusiasm: a passion for Life, purpose, and jouy. FIRE: the Falme of Love that inspires the aspirations of our hearts!

An all-consuming, passionate love affair

Ursula King

The story of the mystics is one of an all-consuming, passionate love affair between human beings and God. It speaks of deep yearning, of burning desire for the contemplation and presence of the divine beloved. Mystics seek participation in divine life, union, and communion with God. Their desire is kindled by the fire of divine love itself, which moves the mystics in their search and leads them, often on arduous journeys, to discover and proclaim the all-encompassing love of God for humankind.

No two hearts are on fire with God in the same way

Joyce Rupp May I have this dance?

No two hearts are on fire with God in the same way. We are all called to live this vibrant love of God in our own way, according to our own personality and temperament. In life's ups and downs, at times we will wonder if any fire remains in us. Because of our inner battles, we will at times resist the fire or fear its power. Yet, within us all, the fire of God continues to flicker even though we may not see its glow.

How do we keep the love of God aflame in us? We must stay close to the original flame of love, and draw near to the heat of God through daily prayer and through a continual yearning to be one with the divine presence. Each time we intentionally draw near to God, we light a candle in our heart.

The world has little by little caught fire

Teilhard de Chardin The Heart of the Matter
Throughout my life, by means of my life, the world has little by little caught fire in my sight, until a flame all around me, it has become almost luminous from within. Such has been my experience in contact with the Earth. The diaphany of the divine at the heart of the universe on fire ... a fire capable of penetrating everywhere, and gradually spreading everywhere.

Tend the flame

Nan Merrill Lumen Christi . . . Holy Wisdom

Remain vigilant! Tend the flame, the Divine Spark,
that nurtures and guides your way!
Not for drugery or duty do you awaken;
rather to delight: to dance and play within creation's wonders.
Enlightened sould know the joy and power of humble service
offered freely, lovingly, and in harmony with the universal Song.
When the flame shines brightly,
who remembers the darkness?
Remain vigilant!
Even in lonely moments, remember to be mindful;
you are never alone.
 

A blessing is the natural expression of the fiery love

David Spangler Blessing
A blessing is the natural expression of the fiery love and inclusiveness of our inner spirit. It is the manifestation of a soul-fire, and each of us can be its hearth. Each of us, you and I, can be points of reconnection, points of remembrance, points of love. We can be blessings.

Barriers are sundered by the Divine Fire

Vladimir Solovyov

Barriers are sundered, fetters are melted
By the Divine Fire,
And the eternal dawn of a new life rises
In all, and all in One.

What sets us on fire?

Jan Orel

If we don't know in the depths of our being that God calls us "beloved," we need to. And if we do know it, and it hasn't set us on fire, then we don't know it well enough. Take time daily to be alone and silent before God. And an awareness of your utter belovedness will become a reality for you.

My body of a sudden blazed

William Butler Yeats

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless.

A living flame of love

William Johnston The Inner Eye of Love

If we are in any way to solve the problems of our day, we must rely on the power of Another, not on our own power. It manifests itself in the human heart as a blind stirring of love, as a living flame of love. Sometimes, this inner fire drives people into solitude where they intercede for humanity and unleash a power which shakes the universe. But the same inner fire drives others into the midst of action with a passionate love for justice and a willingness to die for their convictions.

The fire of contemplation

Gail Worcelo Earthlight #39

There is a realization taking place within me, as my eyes reach out through the skylight, that the deeper I go in prayer the farther out I go in the cosmos. Inner and outer are one. The mystics understood this as they went deeper into the inner experience of God. They experienced a harmonization of their lives with the greater rhythms of existence. They knew by faith what science knows empirically, that the universe is charged with the presence and reality of the Divine. These mystics allowed the fire of contemplation to transform them into a union of love with all creation. They understood that Divine Radiance floods the universe making all things holy.

That sublime Beauty will flame out in your heart

Jami, Eryk Hanut, Andrew Harvey Perfume of the Desert

Whether your destiny is glory or disgrace,
Purify yourself of hatre and love of self.
Polish your mirror, and that sublime Beauty
From the regions of mystery
Will flame out in your heart
As it did for the saints and prophets.
Then, with your heart on fire with that Splendor
The secret of the Beloved will no longer be hidden.
 

How to grow in being

Margaret Holmes Growth Into Being
As you develop spiritually, with increased sensitivity, you become more aware of God's creativity and ceaseless bounty. You value order, for you realize that this makes for harmony, and harmony is the keynote of the universe. You value time. Hours spent visiting someone are Love-filled hours. Above all, you value those most precious moments of the day when you withdraw from activity and experience contact with the Divine Fire of Love: source of all. When this is the most important thing in your life then you are indeed growing in being.

Spiritual hunger is a living, radiant fir

Abu Said Ibn Abi Khayr
Spiritual hunger is a living, radiant fire put by God into hearts so that the ego can be burned; when it has been burned, this fire becomes the fire of longing, which never dies, either in this world or the next. There is no quicker way to God than spiritual hunger; if it travels through solid rock, water gushes forth. Spiritual hunger is essential for the Sufis; it is the showering of God's mercy on them.

Tend the flame

Remain vigilant! Tend the flame, the Divine Spark,
that nurtures and guides your way!
Not for drugery or duty do you awaken;
rather to delight: to dance and play within creation's wonders.
Enlightened sould know the joy and power of humble service
offered freely, lovingly, and in harmony with the universal Song.
When the flame shines brightly,
who remembers the darkness?
Remain vigilant!
Even in lonely moments, remember to be mindful;
you are never alone.
 

January 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 1)

BLESSINGS OF NEW BEGINNINGS asw enter the fifteenth year of Friends of Silence ... prayers and loe sent out to over 5300 individuals in homes around the world ... rippling out from the Silence we eah carry within our heart-home drawing others to unite in the Silence: Home to the Divine Guest who dwells within all whose heart-door is open.

Spiritual life is a response to a call

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee The Call and the Echo

Spiritual life is a response to a call. Of our own accord we would never turn away from the world and begin the long and painful journey HOME. But Someone calls to us, calls to us from within the depths of our heart, awakening our own deepest longing. This call is like a golden thread that we follow, guiding us deeper and deeper within, always pointing to the beyond. It is both intimate and allusive, for it does not belong to the mind, but to the deepest core of our being. We hear it most easily when the conscious mind is still.

Undone again by Your embrace

Vivian Larson Mother Silence

Why do I forget You, abandon You?
You who are wholeness,
You who are home, always now, always present,
giving what every cell in me yearns for--
to collapse into Your warm breath of Life;
defenses drop, naked I be,
cherished solely for my nakedness,
my void, my forgetfulness.

Silence pregnant with all sounds,
I come back, prodigal that I am--
bruised, tired, wired,
To be undone again by Your embrace.

Home as places of preparation

Susan Ford Wiltshire Athena's Disguises

Harry Emerson Fosdick urges the case for peaceful homes as places of nurturance. Nevertheless, he recognizes that our homes can become bastions against the world if they are not connected to work for the sake of the world outside. Fosdick affirms the ultimate purpose of peaceful homes:

O God of life, send from above
Thy succor, swift and strong,
That from such homes stout souls may come
To triumph over wrong.

Understood in this way, our homes are places of nurture but also of preparation. From such places some stalwart souls will envision the world in new ways.

The thirst for God

Cyprian Smith The Way of Paradox

The thirst for God, the desire for unitive knowledge, is not something foreign to our nature. This desire is already in the human heart; the only reason we fail to perceive it is because it is usually covered up with petty worries and egotistical ambitions. Once these are removed, the true desire, buried in the deepest recesses of the human mind, will shine forth of itself and, like a flame, will leap toward heaven, which is its true Home.

To hallow home

Susan Vreeland Hyacinth Blue

He stepped back and breathed more slowly, and what he saw, lit by warning washes of honey and gold, was a respite in stillness from the unacknowledged acts of women to hallow home. That stillness today, he thought, might be all he would ever know of the Realm of Heaven.

So that love may find a home here

Meister Eckhart

In this life we are to become heaven
So that Love may find a home here.

Do not despise your own home and hour

John Burroughs

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is "look under foot." You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own home and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is of the world.

Home is within you

Thich Nhat Hanh

It has been said many times:
HOME is WITHIN you.
You are the light of the world.
Returning Home means remembering
your own true self: Light!

The path around our home
is also the ground of awakening.

I make Awareness my home.

14th Century Samurai

I have no home --
I make Awareness my home.

Coming Home

Molly Vass-Lehman, Paula W. Jamison Seeds of Awakening

Through the cycles and seasons of our lives' as we continue to grow in awareness, we begin to feel more at home in the world. We begin to appreciate and accept who we are... We move from periods of joyful expansion into a dark night of the soul. We seem to reap the harvest of the sustained practice of attention and compassion and come to know ourselves in a new and more forgiving light, only to forget and return to what we thought were old, discarded ways. We suffer and we experience great delight. Yet deep within is a place of understanding, and to find this place is to come home.

This is the Earth -- our home

Edgar Mitchell

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon in long slow-motion movements of immense majesty there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more that a moment to fully realize this is the Earth -- our home.

Earth is our home

Freeman Patterson Portraits of Earth by

Earth is our home ... the largest living creature in our solar system. The land, the water, the air, and all the things that live on and in them form a gigantic community, an enormous cell. Here fungi, eagles, toads, worms, grasses, mosquitoes, ferns, people, dolphins, spiders, oak trees, and lions — up to ten million separately distinguishable forms of life or species — share Earth's environments. Whatever happens to one part, for good or ill, ultimately affects us all, the whole Earth: our home of abundant riches and indescribable beauty.

Workshop for the creation of our identity

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat Spiritual Literacy

HOME is not only a refuge and a sanctuary. It can also be a workshop for the creation of our identity.

Migratory birds fly very high

F. Andrew Christ the Companion

Migratory birds fly very high, for three reasons. First, at a high altitude they can see better where they are going. Secondly, they are above the predatory birds that may prey on them. Thirdly, in that rarefied atmosphere they can fly very swiftly and easily. That is a parable of the way of prayer. Our souls are migratory souls. Our home is not here, but with God, to whom we seek to rise on the wings of prayer. We want to get high to see where we are going ... to rise above the noises, the fuss, and all the complications that distract and rob our lives of their own spiritual quality ... to pass swiftly to our true home, the communion of our souls with God.

That eternity which is our home

Evelyn Underhill

The springs of the truest prayer and the deepest poetry, twin expressions of our outward-going passion for that Eternity which is our home, rise very near together in the heart.

December 2001 (Vol. XIV, No. 11)

BLESSINGS, dear friends, throughout this holy season! May each of us become aware of the angelic presences ever close by to omfort, protect, and guide us at every moment ... and, may we be assured of those angelic beings that lovingly watch over all those who have passed on to new life, uniting them with all who have gone before them. May all who are troubled feel themseles held in the comforting wings of Love.

Angels before me

Joyce Rupp

Angels before me, guide and direct me.
Angels behind me, guard and protect me.
Angels above me, keep watching over me.
Angels beside me, care for and comfort me.

I walk in a cloud of angels

Jessica Powers

I walk in a cloud of angels
I move encircled by light and glowing faces...
stricken by music too sublime to bear.

An angel's hand is there

Fra Giovanni

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty: believe me, an angel's hand is there; the gift is here, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys too: be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

The angels tongues are pure praise

R. Sheldrake, M. Fox The Physics of Angels

The angels tongues are pure praise. Fire is also praise, the flickering flames are praise. Voice is praise, hearing is praise. All these images of praise are images of movement: fire moves, wind moves, tongues move, breath moves, hearing moves. In this praise there is a reverse movement toward God, perhaps mirroring. Energy moves out from God through the angels, and this movement back toward God in the form of praise is vibratory, dynamic, and meaningful.

Living the material half of the angel

Therese Shroeder-Sheker

The angels can know us more intimately and love us when we sing, and they are not asking that we sound like the Philharmonic. They ask us simply to sing because we are harmonic. We are symphonic and in these ways we can connect with the angelic world. I think and feel that the angels wait for us at every given moment. If we alternate song and silence, consciously, with burning attention, every rounded tone carves out the possibility to bridge heaven and earth, to live the material half of the angel.

The Angel of each friend

E. N. Morgan

Give love to the Angel of each friend and see the Light coming forth.

Their line is never busy

Ruth Ryden The Golden Path

No human being will ever have a better friend and confidant than his or her angel. Even in little things, they are always there to help you in distress, pain, unhappiness, or indecision. There is never a time when your angels are busy at something else and do not hear you; their whole concern is you and are always "on tap." Their line is never busy.

All the angels are amazed at humans

Hildegard of Bingen

All the angels are amazed at humans, who through their holy works appear clothed with an incredibly beautiful garment. For the angel without the work of the flesh is simply praise; but the humans with their corporeal works are a glorification! Therefore the angels praise humans' work.

Behaving like an angel

K. Martin-Kurl The Sacred Face of Angels

It is one of the goals of human beings to develop to the point where life is aligned to God in such a way that we behave like an angel in complete service to heaven.

Angels are the creating presences within all things

Robert Sardello The Angels

I see the angels as the creating presences within all things and all things as evidence of their presence. It is not, I believe, that all things are left on the doorstep of the earth by the angels without a trace of their source. Angels are the messengers who are also the message; they are the things of the world in their activity. Seen through spirit, all things are angel activities, and for that reason, the material world makes a spiritual difference. The work of angels takes place in the invisible; however, traces of angels always carry the mark of an authentic symbol, a uniting of what is above with what is below. As nature imitates the heavenly, so must we learn to do so consciously. The first discipline to be learned to achieve this capacity of working in harmony with the angels is meditation.

Now I speak with angels all the time

Michael Abrams The Evolution Angel

I am now an emergency physician and the medical director of a busy trauma center in western Colorado. To this day I shake my head in wonder when I look back upon the series of events that has driven me inexorably to this point. I see now that it all began the night when my life was a certain and violent death. And I also see that I have been shepherded to this place in my life for a reason. Now I speak with angels all the time.

Stillness is our most intense mode of action

Leonard Bernstein, D. J. Green Religion and Ethics

Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action ... we reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; he or she is free from the experience of hostility; she or he is a poet and most like an angel.

The angels urge us to sing

Harvey Humann The Many Faces of Angels

A legend told by the Venerable Bede says that the poet Caedmon was once completely mute. It was a custom in his village to spend evenings taking turns reciting poetry. On these occasions, Caedmon, unable to speak, would steal away to nearby hills to escape. One evening while walking alone, an angel appeared and urged him to sing. Miraculously, he began to sing and went on the become a famous poet.

Angels do different things

Dassi

Angels do different things. Some of them wipe your tears.

When I have gazed into a tidal pool

Helen Luke

When I have gazed into a tidal pool
And seen the texture exquisite of stone,
Of life and plant, deep in the lucid cool,
It seems no greater wonder could be known.
Yet there's a cleanness I have known in dreams --
In those rare dreams that are like blessed wine --
A pure transparency wherein it seems
Is traced the form of the Creator's line.
Distinct and clear appears each one and thing,
And every grain of sand, as though I see
Through unseen water; and the angels sing
An unheard tone from heaven's melody.

So wonder grows to crystal-cut lucidity
Defining the great pattern of eternity.

November 2001 (Vol. XIV, No. 10)

Peace-filled and hope-filled prayer FROM THE SILENCE, dear friends. Though our hearts are heavy, tried by fire in so many areas of our world and individual lives, may we remember that out of the deep well-springs of Silence come healing waters, the still Voice of Love, inspirations to know how to respond in these difficult times, and the courage and strength to speak out and act with great integrity and compassion. May each of us pause in the Silence for a few moments throughout the day to send peace, love, and healing to our wounded world. How each of us lives and thinks makes a BIG difference!

Being silent means waiting

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Meditating on the Word
Being silent means waiting, waiting for the Other to say something to us. Being silent before God means making room for God ... to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively. The time of silence is a time of responsibility, of blessedness, because it is a time when we live in the peace of God. "For God alone my soul in silence waits."

The simplicity of willing one thing

W. Paul Jones A Season in the Desert
Monks call us to the simplicity of willing one thing: in a culture intent on a high standard of living, they insist on a high standard of life. Achievement versus grace: the exposure of the emptiness of fullness for the fullness of emptiness. The heart of this subversion is in planting within a person the appetite for silence. And once planted, once one tastes silence, and listening, and stopping, and being flooded by a Depth beyond all words ... once you do nothing, say nothing, think nothing, but just let yourself BE ... if you ever let this happen, it's all over for you. From then on, everything else seems insane.

A silent heart is a loving heart

Catherine de Heuck Doherty Poustinia

True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God. It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved... This silence, then, will break forth in a charity that overflows in the service of the neighbor without counting the cost. Availability will become delightsome and easy, for in each person the soul will see the face of love. Hospitality will e deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart, and a loving heart is a hospice to the world.

The capacity for silence

S. Wendy Becket

The capacity for silence — a deep creative awareness of one's inner truth — distinguishes us as human.

That which saves society

M. Puglisi

That which saves society is not that which can be seen upon the surface of things. It is not the power of industry, of war, of genius, of letter or arts. It is what touches its depths in a silence called the silence of good things. -- From a NY Times interview

When the Word weds silence

Anonymous

When the word weds silence,
It becomes a prayer

The strength of the interior life

Anonymous

SILENCE is the strength and pace of the interior life.

The purpose of silence

Christian D. Larson

The purpose of silence is to unite the world of things with the world of spirit and thus give the fairest life in all the world to body, mind, and soul.

Silence is our real nature

Anonymous
Silence is our real nature... Holy and healing, there is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty and untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates. Silence is the absence of oneself. And the one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair

Henri Nouwen

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face us with the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Great silence

Tagore

The small truth has words that are clear;
The great truth has great silence

When silence enters

Edith Wallace

When silence enters
The whole universe changes
But the birds still sing.

Without a word but in perfect communication

Douglas Steere Dimensions in Prayer
There are times when we go on a long tramp with someone for whom we greatly care. There has been talk, but it has now faded, and we can stalk mile after mile together without a word but in perfect communication – each glad for the other's presence, each glad the other is alive, each grateful to be the other's friend, each feeling understood, each cherishing the other.

Hungry for silence

Frances Irene Taber Come Apart and Rest Awhile
Persons hungry for silence and for solitude seek a depth of contemplative experience in which one's usual assumptions about daily life are brought into question. The hunger for retreat carries with it a recognition that there is no other way out of many situations in which we find ourselves in the complexity of our lives. There is no other way than to take our messes into the darkness of silence before the Beloved... that by going into this silence, darkness, and helplessness can life be brought forth to sustain either ourselves or our world.

There is nothing in the world that resembles God as much as silence

Meister Eckhardt

 Silence is a privileged entry into the realm of God and into eternal life. There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence an begin to teach us the language of heaven. For, silence is a language that is infinitely deeper, more far-reaching, more understanding, more compassionate, and more eternal than any other language... There is nothing in the world that resembles God as much as silence.

Our culture is losing the art of silence

Barbara Erakko-Taylor Silent Dwellers

Our culture is losing the art of silence, and with it the intrinsic human understanding and capacity for prayer. Silent dwellers, by creating spacious times of physical silence in their lives, slowly recover the human capacity to be with themselves in a caring gentle way. For, it is in silence and solitude that one learns – or regains – the human quality of being in God's presence always.

Silence

Anonymous African proverb

Silence is also speech.

With silence as the single companion

Jennifer Lash On Pilgrimage

As they talked together of The Way, the obstacles, the people, the signs ... you felt the great importance of the physicality of the quest. All of them stressed the power of silence: the need to be alone and find oneself in the silence. Moving alone, with silence as the single companion, seems a most profound means to register the natural balance of the world without, and world within.

October 2001 (Vol. XIV, No. 9)

BLESSINGS of the Autumn season, dear friends, as we ponder the Great Mystery. All is Mystery. Every individual is a mystery never to be fully known or understood. Enter, then, the Silence with open heart and recognize the wondrous mystery that is uniquely yours to live ... yours to share in loving service.

What a mystery!

Guy Finley
Simply put, God wants everything ... What a mystery! To want to loose all, willingly, and with each release to realize you have been increased and made into what you could nevr make of yourself regardless of all you may possess. What a mystery!

The mystery of the inner world

Kabir Helminski The Knowing Heart

Anyone who has probed the inner life, who has sat in silence long enough to experience the stillness of the mind behind its apparent noise is faced with a mystery. Apart from all the outer attractions of life in the world, there exists at the center of human consciousness something quite satisfying and beautiful in itself, a beauty without features. The mystery is not so much that these two dimensions exist – an outer world and the mystery of the inner world – but that we are suspended between them, as a space in which both worlds meet ... as if the human being is the meeting point, the threshold between two worlds.

The mystery names and claims us

Robert Raines A Time to Live

Taking on the mystery is yielding to grace, letting go of all analyses, explanations, ideologies, self-images, images of God, agendas, and expectations. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the finitude of years, hallowing diminishments, and living into the solitude of our own integrity. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the pain of learning that there re no empires favored by the Holy One ... the grief of understanding that there are not theologies favored by the Holy One. Taking on the mystery is acknowledging that we cannot name the mystery, though we try, we cannot claim the mystery, though we do. The mystery names and claims us ...

This luminous mystery

Judith Blackstone The Subtle Self

Dance was my way of praying, of listening, of celebrating, it was my way of being as beautiful as the life around me. Now I feel hideous, unloved, abandoned. I lie down and sob and I feel a screeching hunger for mil, for some essence to flow from the sky and reach down through my shattered mind and reconnect me to warmth and calm. And very gradually it happens. The life in the trees and grass and the warm rocks enters my body and joins me to them. One morning, I sit up and see the incandescent trees in silent communion with each other, immersed in love. This is the world, I think, the real world. Whatever happens to me, the world is still this luminous mystery.

Everyday life is filled with mystery

Rachel Naomi Remen Kitchen Table Wisdom

I no longer feel that life is ordinary. Everyday life is filled with mystery. The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know but can only glimpse. Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us. Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain. In surprising ways it is the mysterious that strengthens us at such times... What I have found in the end was that the life I had defended as a doctor as precious was also Holy.

Connected by Mystery

Eleanore Milardo Unity in Diversity

We are a unity in our diversity
Jewels in a very large web
connected by "Mystery"

But "Mystery" the same for all
but called by different names

The name may be the limit
that tears the strands apart
of the web
connecting us in it.

The revealed mystery of God

Hans Ur von Balthasar

The revealed mystery of God is fathomless.

On the surface of mystery

Annie Dillard

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

Knowing the sacred mystery

Jamie Sams Peace Prayers

O Great Mystery
We give thanks for the natural world we see:
All the Creatures, Stones and Plants
Who show us how to be.
We learn their lessos seek their truths,
Return our loving praise,
We honor the peace they show us,
Which guides our human ways.
We ask that we may become like them,
Living in harmony,
And deep within our heart of hearts,
Know the Sacred Mystery. 

The deeper mystery

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee The Call and the Echo
It is the Beloved who is seeking us, calling to us, longing for us. We always think that we are the seeker, but the deeper mystery is that we are the called.

Taking upon us the mystery of things

William Shakespeare

And take upon 's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies.

A surrender to the holiness of the divine mystery

S. Wendy Becket Meditations on Silence

It is not outer reality that silence reveals, but our own innerness. Silence is essentially a surrender to the holiness of the divine mystery – whether we use these words or not. An atheist, calming his or her spirit in the peace of silence, is irradiated by the same mystery, anonymous but transforming. We are to listen. To what? To silence.

The ultimate mystery of things

Thomas Berry

Spiritual disciplines are being renewed throughout the world. For some, the ultimate mystery of things is experienced in the depth of the inner self, for others in the human community, for still others in the earth process itself. Yet in each instance, the full sense of communion seems to be present.

A mystery of consciousness

Francis Huxley The Sacred

The sacred is plainly a mystery of consciousness – using the word MYSTERY to signify not a problem that can be intellectually solved, but a process of awakening and transformation that must be acted out in order to be experienced, and experienced if one is to make it one's own.

Penetrating further into the Mystery of creation

Brian Boyd Vladimer Nabokov

If only we refuse to take our world for granted, we can detect something artful lurking at the heart of life, inviting us deeper into the world, allowing us to penetrate further and further into the Mystery of its creation, perhaps even promising us a new relation to everything we know.
 

Diving down deep as I can

Ralph Harper Journey from Paradise

God – and humankind too – is a mystery, a living paradox of opposites:

"Most deeply hidden and most nearly present, always acting and always at rest, still gathering and never wanting, seeking although in need of nothing!"

I dive down deep as I can and I find no end.

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