When the prayer makers thought of the soul as a garden, they liked to picture in it the Creator setting a breeze into motion and the flowers of the soul to dancing. On a gray morning or a dark night, in late autumn or in barren years as much as in brighter times, the imagination of such dancing signals that divine activity is all around us, only waiting to be recognized. May the prayer and the dreams that goodness might displace everything that is flawed in the soul come to be realized for another dancing day.
In the waiting hour of twilight, my grandfather taught me about silence. We fished in a small rowboat on the lake until after the moon rose glistening in the water. He explained the rules of fishing, "Bait your own hook, sit still, and don't talk or you will disturb the fish." Each trip was the same. We left behind the cottage and, as we detached ourselves farther and farther from shore a new peace came to us. One time his voice entered the silence saying, "If you listen really hard, God will tell you stories." I listened, and he was right. My mind envisioned new and exciting "somedays" and I came close to tears in the face of the starry night's beauty.