Love all the earth,
every ray of God's light,
every grain of sand
and blade of grass,
every living thing.
If you love the earth enough,
you will know the Divine Mystery.
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
At the heart of ministry is the Silence... Contemplating words or images or imaginings is at least one step removed from the direct experience of God. For as Alan Watts liked to say, "If you find a thousand names for God you will not have God, you will only have a list of names." To contemplate God rather than images about God one can only go humbly, empty of thought and self, into the presence of God -- into the Silence. It is out of the Silence that we love, act, speak if we do so with true spiritual integrity.