M. Basil Pennington

Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self -- the false self -- and no one wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want.

In centering, we begin to leave aside our own thoughts and images and feelings and to make space for the Spirit to begin to operate in us through the gifts. Outside the time of prayer we begin--and often others begin before us--to perceive the presence of these wonderful gifts in our daily lives. These are the fruits by which we judge the "tree" of our centering prayer. It is only through these fruits and the healing they represent that we can know the spirit is working in our lives through this deep, quiet communion with Love at the center of our being.

God hears only the beating of human hearts and what rests within them. It is the compassion that comes out of the experience of oneness and holds the world in infinitely tender love that speaks efficaciously to Divine Creation Love and alters the course of history. It is not some beautiful thought or insightful idea, but being with the groanings of the earth and all its peoples that makes our prayer. It is only our living out of the Center of unity and oneness that make a difference in the redeeming of the earth.