Is there enough silence for the Word to be heard? |
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September 2022
(Vol. XXXV, No. 8)
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Dear Friends ~ When things fall apart, may we learn to embrace the complexity of our lives, befriending our uncertainty and our own lack of control. This is the unwanted doorway to the birth of new life within us. ~ Bob Sabath |
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Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, non-aggressive, open-ended state of affairs.
To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.
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Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.
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I felt in need of a great pilgrimage. So I sat still for three days.
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If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently... And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
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What is the relation of contemplation to action? Simply this. He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.
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The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.
~ Mary Oliver from "Entering the Kingdom" in DEVOTIONS
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May God break my heart so deeply the whole world falls in.
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When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.
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I love Jesus, who said to us:
heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will still remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.
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The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.
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When we hear the sounds of the Earth crying within us, we're unblocking the channels of felt connectedness that join us to the world. These channels act like a system, opening us up to a source of strength and resilience.
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I will also tell you a secret. We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.
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Sadly, because our culture has devalued the feminine, we have repressed so much of her nature, so many of her qualities. Instead we live primarily masculine values; we are goal-oriented, competitive, driven. Masculine values even dominate our spiritual quest; we seek to be better, to improve ourselves, to get somewhere. We have forgotten the feminine qualities of waiting, listening, being empty. We have dismissed the deep need of the soul, our longing, the feminine side of love.
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Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering becomes love. That is the mystery.
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You come to see that suffering is required; and you no more want to avoid it than you want to avoid putting your next foot on the ground when you are walking. In the spiritual path, joy and suffering follow one another like the two feet and you come to a point of not minding which 'foot' is on the ground. You realize on the contrary that it is extremely uncomfortable hopping all the time on the joy foot.
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If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more...
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The monthly Friends of Silence Letter is sent free to thousands worldwide both in print and via email. Please consider donating to keep its wisdom and encouragement coming to you and to all. Click on the donate button above to give whatever you can. Thank you.
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Living Openheartedly in Troubled Times:
Invitation to Transformation and New Possibility
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A soul and nature retreat at Rolling Ridge Study Retreat // October 14-16, 2022
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Holy Ground [collage] Doug Van Houten (c) |
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1681 Patriots Way
Harpers Ferry WV 25425
304-870-4574
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