Warm greetings, dear friends, on a cold winter's day! The sun sparkles on a field of snow, dazzling us with a sudden awareness of the miracles Love wrought in creating our beautiful world. Perhaps one of the greatest of these miracles is that a spark of the Great Love also exists in every one of us. The seeds of Love are planted in our hearts that we may blanket the world with fields of love. We have only to open our hearts to enable that love to grow and bloom and spread across our world. Look deeply into your own heart as you sit within the silence . . . find the love there, and as the husk falls away from the seed, allowing it to grow and bloom, allow any hardness of heart to dissolve into the flame of Love. Love can change the world!
With my rent miraculously taken care of, my life went deeply inward. I hardly spoke for over a year. Many visitors came, sat in silence, and left. Sometimes I spoke, but mostly I did not. The unwritten rule seemed to be that I would not speak out of discomfort or fear of silence. I would speak only when I felt that somehow a compassionate word might help someone I was with. Fasting, silence, and reading defined my life for several years... I didn't know if I was giving myself to foolishness or saintliness.