Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

An Excerpt from One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World by Gordon Hampton and John Grossman

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything. It lives here, profoundly, at One Square Inch in the Hoh Rain Forest. It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it.”

desert of your soul

When darkness and doubts assail you, why not keep them at arm’s length? Often they are only interludes of unbelief, nothing more. Why see yourself as dry ground? When his dew appears, the tears of the morning, a thirst is quenched in the desert of your soul. (Taize)

Evelyn Underhill

EVELYN UNDERHILL

THEOLOGIAN AND MYSTIC (15 JUNE 1941)

To go up alone into the mountains
and come back as an ambassador to the world,
has ever been the method of humanity’s best friends.

The windows of Christ’s Mysteries split the [Light] up into many-coloured loveliness, disclose all of its hidden richness…make its beauty more accessible to us…And within this place we too are bathed in the light transmitted by the windows, a light which is yet the very radiance of Eternity.

Listening

“Listening moves us closer, it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation always causes more suffering. How many teenagers today, in many lands, state that no one listens to them? They feel ignored and discounted, and in pain they turn to each other to create their own subcultures.”

Time For Quiet

Energy is everywhere, but stillness plays a major role in its conversion from “potential” to “actualized” energy. At Callaway Gardens, I was amazed to learn that butterflies have to spread their wings in the morning sunshine because the scales on their wings are actually solar cells. Without that source of energy, they cannot fly.  Laurie [...]

Easter Sunday

“Today, the light of new day has come. With the newness of this Easter, we find ourselves basking in the hope and life that comes in the Resurrected Christ. While the rest of the world marches on, failing to notice all that is breaking forth, I hope you remember to pause, reflect, and enter into God’s passion for you.”

Holy Saturday

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish holiday of preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.—John 19: 41-42

Life Lived In Gratitude

There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy. — Ralph H. Blum quoted in Words of Gratitude by Robert A. Emmons and Joanna Hill

Speed In Work

An Excerpt from Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte David Whyte’s book is, as he puts it, “a midnight conversation” on the union of work and soul, yearning and satisfaction. Here is a cogent passage on how speed can become an obstacle to expressing the best that is [...]