The sun was trembling now on the edge of the ridge. It was alive, almost fluid and pulsating. As I watched it sink, I could feel the earth turning from it, actually feel its rotation. Over all was the silence of the wilderness, that sense of oneness which comes only when there are no distracting sights or sounds, when we listen with inward ears and see with inward eyes, when we feel and are aware with our entire beings rather than our senses. I though as I sat there, "Be still and know I am God," and knew that without stillness there can be not knowing, we cannot know what spirit means.
When Mother Teresa was asked what would happen to her congregation after she had gone, she is said to have responded:
"A person emptier than myself will come along."
The implication here is that the greatness of a person lies in the depth of his or her own self-emptying. Another implication is that what is emptied of oneself will be filled with the self of God. Poverty as a chosen life-style is precisely this:
"To empty oneself of all that one is and has so that all will be at the disposal of the Lord."