On this rainy and interior day, as I write letters about Mummy, I feel her presence so strongly. Just now, I can feel her sending her love to me. Suddenly, I see and feel her standing there, just a couple yards in front of me by the window, looking younger, and yet every age and no age. She's all in white, radiating light, smiling her smile, and love is pouring out of her eyes onto me, covering me. Ifeel my heart pounding, a ringing in my ears. I find it hard to breathe. It is overwhelming ... I know now she'll always be with me and, though it makes me sad to think I can't be with her in person anymore, I know I'll never not be with her again.
Quiet, contemplative prayer happens when we are still and open ourselves to the Spirit working secretly in us, when we heed the psalmist's plea: "be still and know that I am God." These are times when we trustingly sink into God's formless hands for cleansing, illumination, and communion. Sometimes spontaneous sounds and words come through us in such prayer, but more often we are in a state of quiet appreciation, simply hollowed out for God. At the gifted depth of this kind of prayer we pass beyond an image of God and beyond any image of self. We are left in a mutual raw presence. Here we realize that God and ourselves quite literally are more than we can imagine.