silence

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, 'Prove that you are a good person.' Another voice says, 'You__ better be ashamed of yourself.' There also is a voice that says, 'Nobody really cares about you,' and one that says, 'Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.' But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, 'You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.' That__ the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.That__ what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us 'my Beloved'.

He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,

I have always been on speaking terms with God, especially now. God and I just had a few weeks of silence. 'Tis over now.

Silence might be a shout for the truth. It might be the speech that someday, in its truest, most uncontaminated, unadulterated state, all will be revealed.

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change?

Most of us think too much of speech, which is but the shell of thought.

There is comfort in keeping what is sacred inside us not as a secret, but as a prayer.

Where were you when I undressed and told the tales of my day?Where were youwhenI was silent with God in prandial pray?Where were youwhen I recited love poems as I lay?Where were you?

I did pray. I kept on Praying. But prayer did nothing to alleviate their suffering.

When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. But in the depths of our being Christ is praying for more than we imagine. Compared to the immensity of that hidden prayer of Christ in us, our explicit praying dwindles to almost nothing. That is why silence is so essential in discovery the heart of prayer.Although God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never wants to impose anything on us. Often God's voice comes in a whisper, in a breath of silence. Remaining in silence in God's presence, open to the Spirit, is already prayer.It is not a matter of trying to obtain inner silence at all costs by following some method that creates a kind of emptiness within. The important thing is a childlike attitude of trust by which we allow Christ to pray within us silently, and then one day, we will discover that the depths of our being ar inhabited by a Presence.

Since there is no real silence, Silence will contain all the sounds, All the words, all the languages, All knowledge, all memory.

I wanted to scream as I stood there, my toes hanging over the edge of the dock. I wanted to let a gut-wrenching howl rip from my disfigured throat toward those clouded skies. I wanted to say every swear word my mother had ever taught me not to say.I would have settled for a cut-off whimper, just as long as some kind of sound came from my lips.

In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.

A radio was playing quietly. Nobody was listening. It was there to drown out the silence.

Penetrate deep into the word "Om". Gradually the word will disappear and only the silence will remain. The word is a support. The meaning is within you. Om brings out that meaning which is hidden in your soul.

It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.

I think maybe, when I was very young, I witnessed a chaste cheek kiss between the two when it was impossible to avoid. Christmas, birthdays. Dry lips. On their best married days, their communications were entirely transactional: 'We're out of milk again.' (I'll get some today.) 'I need this ironed properly.' (I'll do that today.) 'How hard is it to buy milk?' (Silence.) 'You forgot to call the plumber.' (Sigh.) 'Goddammit, put on your coat, right now, and go out and get some goddamn milk. Now.' These messages and orders brought to you by my father, a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee.

In the end, it was the secrets that held me hostage and fuelled my depression, but, once released, emancipation - from fear, shame, guilt and judgement - was finally possible.