One morning, as a fire flamed back of a handsome eighteenth-century glass screen, I looked for the silence underneath the explosions of the fire... By now I was adept at finding the silence wherever it was. As I settled into it this morning, letting it fill my ears, mind and being, I heard the words: "I'll never abandon you, no matter what you do." ... Once I heard it, I learned to go and find, first the silence and then to wait for the voice. It comes OUT of the silence. It doesn't always come. But somehow I know it will again. And this knowledge has changed my existence. What I have to do, I now understand, is keep myself ready to hear it when it does.
A friend once told me about the "home" he and his father had as refugees in Europe during World War II. He, his mother, and his younger brother moved constantly from place to place. . . . Each time they arrived in a new place, his mother would open the small suitcase that held all their belongings and bring out the lace tablecloth she had used for their Friday night meals in Poland, before they were forced to leave and begin their flight. In each place the ritual was exactly the same. She would place the suitcase on a table, carefully drape the tablecloth over the suitcase, light a candle, and in that moment, wherever it was became home. This ritual was their prayer.