In this latter part of life, my prayer of the heart is most often without words. My tongue is stilled. My mind is stilled. The prayer of the heart becomes the heart's own respiration. I breathe in and I breathe out. It is God's breath. God breathing in, God breathing out. It is God's breath breathing me.
Greetings from the heart, dear Friends of Silence! In contemplating the nature of love, we find it hard to pin down to any one definition. Love is all-encompassing, ever flowing. Love knows no walls, it permeates everything and is visible in everything to those with eyes to see. The nature of God is love, and the nature of all God's creation is love. Our own deepest nature is of that same divine love. It is our task to find that love in ourselves, be open to it, remain in constant contact with it, and allow it to guide and direct our lives. In the silence, it is possible to rest there for a time and then to return to our busy lives with greater awareness of and ability to bring love to all our actions and interactions. May it be so!
For a few minutes we sat there petting the kittens, saying nothing. But every so often I glanced at Demetrios. His big, thick, wrinkled hands cradled the animal lovingly as he stroked its fur in repetitive waves from the neck on down. Then he looked up and sighed.
"Touch everything this way."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Try to love everything. Everything wants love, just like these ghatakia (kittens). Let your love flow--let it be constant, like the seasons. . . . We are called to love people, birds, beasts, trees, seas, stars . . . all the universe wants to be cherished!"
Be a sweet melody in the great orchestration, instead of a discordant note. The medicine this sick world needs is love. Hatred must be replaced by love, and fear by faith that love will prevail.
I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other.
An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception.
I was recently rereading the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and I understood once again that the whole movement was based on love--love that doesn't exclude anybody. . . when you take that view and you begin to live by it, something begins to shift very dramatically and you begin to see things in a different way. You begin to have the clarity to see injustice happening, but you can also see that injustice, by its very definition, is harming everybody involved. It's harming the people who are being oppressed or abused, and it's harming those who are oppressing and abusing.
Loving Lord God, help me to be aware of your loving presence regardless of where I am or what I am doing. Lead me into the center of your heart of love, The Holy of Holies where peace and joy abide. Let me live in your presence always.
from THERE IS NOTHING IN GOD BUT LOVE by Maryanne Lacy
Love is the Conductor of our lives be like members of a fine orchestra with all eyes seeing as One. Keep your inner eye single, focused only on Love; thus will the Great Conductor inspire and guide the music of your life.
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
Try to radiate your love equally to all people instead of just a few. Try to feel that the whole world is your Self, your God. Try to see the Self in all people. Spread your love in all directions as an act of worship and surrender, because everything in the world is a manifestation of God.
As Aldous Huxley wrote: "There isn't any formula or method. You learn by loving." But sometimes, if we're lucky, we live long enough to grow into it in such a way that because of it we come to recognize the value of life. . . . We learn enough about love to allow things to slip away and ourselves to melt into the God whose love made all of it possible. . . . Sometimes we live long enough to see the face of God in another. Then, in that case, we have loved.
from 40 STORIES TO STIR THE SOUL by Joan Chittister
There is love like a small lamp, which goes out when the oil is consumed; or like a stream which dries up when it doesn't rain. But there is a love like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible . . .
No separation between God and humans . . . a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. "I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you." . . . There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual interabiding which expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God--and Go into us--because it is the nature of love to flow. . . . The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love.
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!
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.
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.
We cannot avoid the question of integrity or wholeness to which all of us proceed. We cannot exclude anyone from the process of becoming fully human, neither a woman nor a man. Personal experience is essential. God gives us the ability to experience ourselves and to assume relationships. As we develop this, we learn to overcome the tensions and the difficulties in life; and those times when there is a lack of love, we are given hope. We experience hope. The great thing about all this is the hope and the realization that it is within our reach.
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.
from CHRIST THE ETERNAL TAO by Hieromonk Damascene
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 . . .
Sr. Mary Frances Fleischaker, thanks to Muriel Benz
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