An early century desert monk once shared an image:
"When the door of the steam bath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says is good ..."
Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.
The entirety of the contemplative life is grounded in the love of God. Without that love there would be no prayer ... nothing at all. This love calls into being -- creates, quickens, gives life to -- all that is. This love binds together each one to the other, and in the end binds us to the Source of that love, draws us back into the One whom we never really left, draws us back into God. In that returning we discover that there never existed a division between us and that ... the whole of life is in truth one continuous mystical experience because it has always been suffused with God's love.