Prayer and meditation are as necessary for the life of the spirit as fresh air, food, and sunlight are for the body. If we think of prayer as talking to God, with or without words, our own or those of others, then we can think of meditation as listening to God — an attitude of open, silent receptiveness.
But now and then comes an hour when the silence is all but absolute, and listening to it one slips out of time. Such a silence is not a mere negation of sound. It is like a new element, and the world is suspended there, and I in it...