April 1997 (Vol. X, No. 4)

BLESSINGS be with you all in thi seed-dowing season! Just as seed germinates in the silent, fertile soil, may the seed of God's Word be nourished in the silence of your soul.

There is only one world

If we could even for a moment throw away our concepts and see with the inner eye through all the veils of conditioning, we would know there is only one world, one indissoluble whole. We would see that all creatures on earth are part of a sinle system. There is no preferred species; there is no preferred race. In the Eye of Wisdom ... What we do, we must do in this very moment. There is no other preferred moment. When we can accept what is before our eyes, accept it with whole heart, we no longer have anything to fear, anything to long for. All we need to set the world aright is here. We have only to see it.

~ from SEEING THROUGH THE VISIBLE WORLD by June Singer
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Thou can'st not stir a flower Without troubling a star

All things by immortal power
near or far
suddenly
to each other linked are.
Thou can'st not stir a flower
Without troubling a star.

~ Francis Thompson thanks to Lyn Harmon
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Leave the ground unseeded

Uncle explained that the pines and oaks will not spread into the fields to grow and make a new woods, unless we leave the ground unseeded. My uncle envisioned that this barren land was to become a new forest, one of great beauty and repose. "To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy."

~ from THE FAITHFUL GARDENER by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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Nature within us is part of the same great pattern as nature without

Because nature within us is part of the same great pattern as nature without, to begin the turn-around from "ravaged" land to "reverenced" land, the first step is to take time out to permit our inner patterns to re-align with the greater beings -- the sun and the atmosphere -- which give us our life here on Earth.

~ Dolores La Chapelle
Dolores La Chapelle nature

Then a tree becomes a mystery

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each individual a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

~ Dag Hammarskjold
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The awareness of the unity and interconnectedness of all beings

The awareness of the unity and interconnectedness of all beings leads -- if it is consistent -- to an empathy with others. It expresses itself as reverence of life, compassion, a sense of the communion of suffering humanity, and the commitment to heal our wounded earth and its peoples.

~ from DIALOGUES WITH SCIENTISTS AND SAGES by Renee Weber
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Walk and touch peace every moment

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.
Earth will be safe
When we feel in us enough safety.

~ from CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAMES by Thich Nhat Hanh
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Listen! The streams carry Love's Voice

Listen! The streams carry Love's Voice
mingled with bird song
sharing gratitude and praise
in support of Life!
Listen! Join the song of Creation!

~ Nan Merrill
Nan Merrill nature

Stone is storyteller

Stone is storyteller.
Stone is meditation master.
Stone performs the dance of stillness.

~ Frederic Lehrman
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The earth gives us life

The earth gives us life. The world around is beautiful and meant to be viewed with respect and wonder... The Sioux holy man, Black Elk, expressed it well when he said that any place you are is the center of the world. This beautiful creation is always speaking to us, it is just that we sometimes do not stop to look and listen. We forget to see as we were meant to see, not just through our eyes, but through the eye of the heart.

~ Joseph Bruchac in SOARING WITH RAVENS by Tim Fizharris
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The world is a sacred place and a sacred process

"The world is a sacred place and a sacred process," I told her, "and we're part of it."

“That's excellent -- simple and to the point. This is what was understood -- and is still understood among Leaver peoples. Wherever you were in the world, you found people who took it for granted that the world is a sacred place, and that we belong in that sacred place as much as any creature in the world." Smiling, she looked around the park, as if giving it a silent farewell. Then she included me in the smile as she said, "Maybe someday someone will find a way to say it that makes the ground tremble."

~ from THE STORY OF B by Daniel Quinn
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What a gift each morning to encounter some part of nature

What a gift each morning to encounter some part of nature... It is a pure gift of beauty, of life. The sunrise can be a reminder of the day's gift because it comes unbidden. We don't produce it. The light is given. The world is reborn each morning, and we are given a whole new time of opportunity. Even if the difficulties are the same we had yesterday, we can tackle them in a new way. Primordial freshness is renewed each morning.

~ from THE MUSIC OF SILENCE by D. Steindl-Rast
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I often wonder what it would be like if we dared to love this life

I often wonder what it would be like if we dared to love this life -- the fragile and the vulnerable, the endangered, daring to be humble before the magnitude of our beginnings, daring to learn our species into a stubborn and pliant wonder, until reverence shines in all that we do -- until we live an economics of reverence -- until it permeates education, development and health care, homes and relationship, arts and agriculture -- a reverence for life, for planetary, social and personal wholeness. This is our purpose now. May we do it well, with thoroughness and love.

~ from THROUGH THE MOONS OF AUGUST by Carolyn McDade
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March 1997 (Vol. X, No. 3)

BLESSINGS BE YOURS, dear friends! As we enter the Spring season, may you each pause to enter the Chapel of your heart where in silence you can commune gently, lovingly, humbly, with the Heart within your heart.

Through prayer that we receive the courage to accomplish

For, it is through prayer that we receive the courage to accomplish what God, neighbor, and our deepest selves are calling us to do. It is when we pray that we are able to surrender to a higher power one day at a time, accepting whatever comes. It is the practise of prayer that can teach us true wisdom, the wisdom of compassion, the wisdom of the heart.

~ from WISDOM OF THE CELTIC SAINTS by Edward C. Sellner
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Prayer is an opening of the heart

Prayer is an opening of the heart, an alignment with the beauty of the universe. We pray to open our hearts to spiritual power, the ability to sparkle, to shine warmth and light. We open to both the power of clear sight and the power of reflection, to actions that are thoughtful and kind.

~ from OPEN MIND by Diane Mariechild
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The path of silence

The path of silence ... is the path of meditation or contemplation which leads us to the center of our being. We plant the seed of silence within ourselves by quieting the mind. We allow our minds to empty of thought so we can enter our own resounding silence, a state from which we gain deep refreshment... Experiencing the silence within is like opening a hidden door to the soul.

~ from WALKING A SACRED PATH by Lauren Artress
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Let the prayer speak

When you pray,
you yourself must be silent.
Let the prayer speak.

~ Tito Colliander
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Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus

Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus: for God alone my soul waits. Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a will that is more important, more essential... In prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts. Waiting is our participation in the process that results in the "time fulfilled".

~ from EARTH AND ALTAR by Eugene H. Peterson
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Are you aware that God visits with you?

Are you aware that God visits with you?
In a breath of silence, in a whisper,
God speaks to you humbly.
Simply remaining in silence,
in God's presence,
to receive the Spirit, is already prayer.
God will show you the way.
At times silence can be everything in prayer.

~ from AWAKENED FROM WITHIN by Frere Roger
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The wonderful beauty of prayer

The wonderful beauty of prayer is that the opening of our heart is as natural as the opening of a flower. Just as to let a flower open and bloom it is only necessary to let it be, so if we simply are, if we become and remain still and silent, our heart cannot but be open, the Spirit cannot but pour through into our whole being. It is for this we have been created.

~ from COMMUNITY OF LOVE by John Main
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The duty of prayer

In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty -- the duty of prayer -- the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. Daily devotions were more necessary than daily food... Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone!

~ Ohiyesa, a Santee Dakota physician, 1911
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Inner stillness is perhaps our greatest ally

Inner stillness is perhaps our greatest ally. Gandhi once wrote that silence brings "the highest potency and is self-acting power." Prayer, meditation, reading scripture (which is, to me, alive with silence, embedded with sacred codes about our deepest mind) -- even quiet walks -- become healing acts. These quiet the world's noises and provide clues about who we are and our healthiest directions.

~ from TO BUILD THE LIFE YOU WANT, CREATE THE WORK YOU LOVE by Marsha Sinetar
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When prayer becomes the one thing necessary

Prayer never touches us as long as it remains on the surface of our lives, as long as it is nothing but one more of a thousand things that must be done. It is only when prayer becomes "the one thing necessary" that real prayer begins. Prayer begins to take on its full dimensions only when we begin to intuit that the subtle nothingness of prayer is everything.

~ from MERTON'S PALACE OF NOWHERE by James Finley
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It is impossible to have a prayer without power

Prayer is moving into a personal relationship with Divine Love and intelligence. It is impossible to have a prayer without power. It is impossible to have a thought that is a secret, for all energy is heard. When you pray, you draw to you and invoke grace. Grace is uncontaminated conscious Light. It is Divinity. Prayer brings grace and grace calms you. Grace is the tranquilizer of the soul. With grace comes a knowing that what you are experiencing is necessary. It calms you with a sense of knowing.

~ from THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav
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Spiritual beings having human experiences

We are not human beings having spiritual experiences; we are spiritual beings have human experiences.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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Opening up a two-way street between us and God

There are many different kinds of prayer. Yet all prayer has one basic purpose. We pray not to get something, but to open up a two-way street between us and God so that we (and others) may inwardly become something beautiful that we share with others.

~ John Heuss B0007HLRF8
John Heuss prayer

There is a time for silence and a time for speech

"There is a time for silence and a time for speech." Teach me, O Holy One, the silence of humility, the silence of wisdom, the silence of love, the silence of perfection, the silence that speaks without words, the silence of faith. Teach me to silence my own heart that I may listen to the gentle movement of Thy Spirit within me and sense the depths which are of God.

~ a German prayer of the 16th century
Unknown prayer

You can do more than pray

You can do more than pray -- but only after you have prayed.

~ S.D. Gordon
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February 1997 (Vol. X, No. 2)

BLESSED FRIENDS, Silence is power within us! The power of Divine Love blessing us, transforming us, and sending us out to share that Love in a world sorely in need of compassion and healing.

In the final analysis meditation is a love affair

In the final analysis meditation is a love affair. And love is the most powerful energy in the universe. The great irony of meditation is that we become more immersed in the here-and-now. We are liberated from our false egos, and begin to know and love others at a deeper level of awareness. Liberated from our possessiveness, we reach out with a new found compassion to our family, friends, and the less fortunate.

~ from SILENT MUSIC by William Johnston
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For love to awaken in us

To journey into the interior world within
love must already be awakened.
For love to awaken in us:
Let go ... Let be ... Be silent
Be still in gentle peace
Be aware of opposites,
Learn mindfulness and forgetfulness.

~ Teresa of Avila
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Love searches out the arid spots of the human heart

The Tree of Life is located in the very depth of our own soul, and of the rich, abundant fruit that grows and ripens to the fullest perfections, the most life-giving, is Love... The Divine Principle of Love may be used to eliminate every sorrow, every infirmity, every harsh condition and every lack that harasses humanity... With wings outstretched, Love searches out the arid spots of the human heart, the waste places of life, and redeems humanity and transforms the world.

~ from LIFE AND TEACHING by Baird T. Spalding
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Love stretches your heart

LOVE stretches your heart and makes you big inside!

~ M. Walker
M. Walker love

If you wish the world to become loving

If you wish the world to become loving and compassionate, become loving and compassionate yourself. If you wish to diminish fear in the world, diminish your own. These are gifts you can give. The fear that exists between nations is a macrocosm of the fear that exists between individuals... The love, clarity and compassion that emerge within the individual that chooses consciously to align itself with its soul is the same that will bring sexes, races, nations and neighbors into harmony with each other.

~ from THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav
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The entirety of the contemplative life is grounded in the love of God

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.

~ from THE SMELL OF INCENSE, THE SOUND OF SILENCE by John W. Groff
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Try as much as you can to develop compassion

My request, my appeal, is that you try as much as you can to develop compassion, love and respect for others, to share others' welfare, and to become more giving... The important thing is to have a good heart, a warm heart, in daily life. This is the principle of life.

~ The 14th Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama love

Looking together in the same direction

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but
but in looking together in the same direction.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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The only beloved who can always be counted on is God

The only beloved who can always be counted on is God. The ultimate partner is a divine one, an experience of ourselves that is totally supportive and forgiving... It is the love we give as much as the love we get. The passion we most need to feed is our relationship to God, ultimately our relationship to ourselves.

~ Marianne Williamson
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Peace of mind has nothing to do with the external world

Peace of mind has nothing to do with the external world; it has only to do with our connection with God. Love really is the answer. We're here only to teach love. When we're doing that, our souls are singing and dancing. When we remind ourselves that we are spiritual beings, that life and love are the flame eternal, that's when our soul is nourished.

~ from "Love Is the Answer" by Gerald Jampolsky in HANDBOOK OF THE SOUL
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May Love grace your life

May Love grace your life and
may Love guide your way!
Divine Communion begins when you love.
Then not only are you connected to Love,
you are love.
The way by which we commune with God
is by being love.

~ Franklin Albert Jones
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True drops of love

We must not think that our love has to be extraordinary. But we do need to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. These drops are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being quiet, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. They are the true drops of love that keep our lives and relationships burning like a living flame.

~ Mother Teresa
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It is the going out from oneself that is love

It is the going out from oneself that is love and not the accident of its return. It is the expedition, whether it fail or succeed.

~ H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells love

God has given you a beautiful self

God has given you a beautiful self. There God dwells and loves you with the first love, which precedes all human love. You carry your own beautiful, deeply loved self in your heart. You can hold on to the truth of the love you were given and recognize that same love in others who see your goodness and love you... The task is not to die to life-giving relationships, but to realize that the love you receive in them is part of a greater love.

~ from THE INNER VOICE OF LOVE by Henri J.M. Nouwen
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The love of God, unutterable and perfect

The love of God, unutterable and perfect
flows into a pure soul the way that light
rushes into a transparent object.

The more love that it finds, the more it gives
itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
the more complete the joy of heaven is.

And the more souls who resonate together,
the greater the intensity of their love,
and mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.

~ Dante in THE ENLIGHTENED HEART by Steven Mitchell
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January 1997 (Vol. X, No. 1)

EVERY GOOD WISH to you, friends, in this new year as we begin the tenth year of this Friends of Silence newsletter. As we eah continue to take time in silence, our cumulative silences will bring blessing to family, friends and community -- even rippling out to the world.

In silence and solitude that you will find your most meaningful real moments

It is often in silence and solitude that you will find your most meaningful real moments. Silence nourishes the soul and heals the heart. It creates an insulated space between you and the noisy, demanding world you live in, a womb of stillness in which you can be reborn over and over again. Silence has a regenerative power of its own. It is sacred. It returns you home. Solitude is very necessary for silences to go deep... Silence will help you see clearly, sometimes for the first time, exactly what is out of balance in your life. When you make the time for the apparent non-doing of silence and solitude, your doing will become much more effective and meaningful.

~ from REAL MOMENTS by Barbara DeAngelis thanks to Mary Lou Evans
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The goal of healthy solitude is love

The goal of healthy solitude is love: love and acceptance of ourselves as we are and where we are, and love and compassion for others.

~ from SINGLENESS by Dorothy Payne
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There are few things as powerful as solitude

There are few things as powerful as solitude to help you get in touch with your inner self -- especially when that solitude is accompanied by silence and the elimination of outside stimuli... Solitude give you the opportunity to confront your inner self in ways that few other endeavors can. Out of your times of solitude come serenity, peace of mind, and unparalleled opportunities to connect with your soul.

~ from INNER SIMPLICITY by Elaine St. James
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Solitude builds up

Solitude builds up, affords a conscious setting in which significant growth in the life of the Spirit can take place. Solitude is a gift of time without accompanying distraction, an opportunity to keep company with one's own soul. It is where the Spirit can help one harness one's own cross in such a way that it can be carried without too great strain... Solitude is conducive to journaling, reflection, meditation and is indispensable to contemplation.

~ from ON HALLOWING ONE'S DIMINISHMENTS by John Yungblut
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God wanted me empty, alone, silent and watchful

I watched ice form on the river outside my window one Sunday afternoon and felt loneliness more intense than any I could remember since childhood. The day had grown incredibly still -- so deep it seemed poised at the edge of eternity... Nearly empty, I could not hope to fill myself -- certainly not with human companionship -- and I began to sense that this was exactly as it should be. God wanted me empty, alone, silent and watchful. I was suffering from both sever laryngitis and a lame leg, and had to laugh at myself, wondering if I was really so dense that God had to resort to these extremes in order to get me to shut up and be still.

~ from THE CLOISTER WALK by Kathleen Norris
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To move toward the desert

To move toward the desert where interior prayer and interior transformation can take place means a willingness to go into the desert, to learn to shut the door, and to move into the necessary solitude which prayer and the deeper levels of worship require.

~ Douglas Steere
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If we cannot be still

If we cannot wait,
we cannot know the
right time to move.

If we cannot be still,
our actions will have
gathered no power.

~ Unknown
Unknown silence

Solitude is a return to one's own self

Solitude is a return to one's own self when the world has become filled with people and too much of a response to others. Solitude is as much an intrinsic desire in us as our gregariousness. Hermits, solitary thinkers, independent spirits, recluses, although often stigmatized in the modern world, are healthy expressions of our dialogue with ourself.

~ from LONELINESS AND LOVE by Clark E. Moustakas
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We have only to be still

Silence reminds us that we have only to be still and let the waters of grace refresh us and the sunlight of peace shine upon us.

~ S. Wendy Beckett
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Solitude and loneliness are not the same thing

Solitude and loneliness are not the same thing. Loneliness is the sign that something is lacking. The purpose of solitude is to bring us home to the center of ourselves with such serenity that we could lose everything and, in the end, lose nothing of the fullness of life at all. When you are alone, are you lonely or are in solitude? If loneliness is what it's about, what you may need most is the cultivation of the richness of solitude.

~ from IN A HIGH SPIRITUAL SEASON by Joan Chittister thanks to Patricia Prescott
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The spirit of the wilderness is solitude

The spirit of the wilderness is solitude. We go alone to meet the divinity within us. The wisdom of the wilderness comes from God interacting through creation to touch our very soul. We emerge from our journey with a new identity grounded in God. Transformed, we discover we have been given back to ourselves.

~ from WISDOM FROM ANOTHER WILDERNESS by Debra Donnelly-Barton
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Alone in silence?

When I retreat at home, I am alone in silence. But I am also with thousands of others around the world, sitting quietly, all of us bonded together in our effort, our solitude, and our prayers... We are opening our hearts, alone but all-one, joining others throughout the centuries in timeless realms.

~ from SILENCE, SIMPLICITY AND SOLITUDE by David A. Cooper
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A silent listener awaiting Being

On a clear winter morning, just as the sun rises high enough for its slanting rays to shine horizontally through the trees ~ I lay my track through the snow -- a silent listener awaiting Being. And Being responds. I move so silently and swiftly that deer, rabbits and weasels are surprised and caught in their inner lives; so swiftly and silently they do not flee but stand out in their beings... The earth more present, the sky more present, I, the human, more present in total awareness.

~ Dolores La Chapelle
Dolores La Chapelle silence

December 1996 (Vol. IX, No. 11)

GREETINGS and BLESSINGS from the silence, friends. May these darkest of days that lead to renewed light be a reminder to each of us to live according to our own highest light. Thus, will more light be given. May we remember to pause in the mist of this busiest of seasons to listen in reverence to the heart's voice.

As we let our own light shine

We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech
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When we no longer feel threatened in the presence of light

When we come to believe in the Divine-Within and trust it to know its path, fearlessness begins. When we no longer feel threatened in the presence of light, we can be admitted to the high and holy way.

~ Carol E. Parrish-Harra
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I am the light

I am the Light.
The Light moves in me.
The Light moves through me.
The Light surrounds me.
The Light protects me.
I am the Light.

~ from WALKING IN BEAUTY by Dick Olney
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Light for my darkness

Open unto me ... light for my darkness.
Open unto me ... courage for my fear.
Open unto me ... hope for my despair.
Open unto me ... peace for my turmoil.
Open unto me ... joy for my sorrow.
Open unto me ... strength for my weakness.
Open unto me ... wisdom for my confusion.
Open unto me ... forgiveness for my sins.
Open unto me ... tenderness for my toughness.
Open unto me ... love for my hates.
Open unto me ... Thy Self for my self.

~ from WRITINGS OF HOWARD THURMOND
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What is to give light

What is to give light must endure burning.

~ Viktor Frankl
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And the light shone in the darkness

And the light shone in the darkness and
Against the world the unstilled world still whirled
Above the center of the silent WORD.

~ T.S. Eliot with thanks to S. Charlene Schafer
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The face of the child was glowing with light

I turned off the light and drifted into that floating sensation, not asleep but drowsy, half awake and half asleep. Often, while in this state -- lovely, unknown faces float before me -- but this morning the experience was different. A perfect face of a child came before me in profile -- then it turned and smiled at me. It was glowing with light and seemed to fill my own head with light. I was aglow and excited and thought, "This must be the Christos"; but something within me, without sound, said, "No, this is you." I feel I will never be the same again and some day I may experience the "Promise".

~ from THE LAW AND THE PROMISE by Neville Goddard
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Watching for light was her vocation

Watching for light was her vocation. Light and life were one and the same thing. There would be no life without light; it was the beginning; it was the substance that made things visible, that brought humanity to an awareness of what cannot be seen. It could enhance a thing and make it holy. This she had felt in her life as in her work, a sense of reaching for harmony beyond the human experience through light itself.

~ Ruth Bernhard in GIFTS OF AGE by Charlotte Painter
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A soul with no light

A soul with no light will always come to know Light because there is so much assistance provided to each soul at all times.
~ Gary Zukov
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There is a light in you which cannot die

There is a light in you which cannot die; Whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you.

~ from C.I.M. with thanks to Sherry Blanchette
Unknown light

The Light that shines in the Silence

The Light of God surrounds you,
The Love of God enfolds you,
The Power of God protects you,
The Presence of God watches over you;
Wherever you are, God is.

KNOW that all who live in the magnified Presence
are forever advancing towards the moment of
Great Realization
in their lives.
The Light that shines in the Silence,
in that space of Awakening,
is beyond the brilliance of even the greatest Sun.
It is the Light of your Heart.
and your Heart is the Morning Star.
O listen if you would,
for therein lies a teaching.

~ Jim Berenholtz
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The gate that silence opens

The gate that silence opens up within us leads to light.

~ S. Wendy Beckett
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November 1996 (Vol. IX, No. 10)

May your hearts be open to every gift, dear friends! for, the gift within every gift is always opportunity. Life is a gift to us; every moment is given. The only appropriae response therefore is gratitude. Our lives are surely enhanced as we pause frequently to appreciate and to be thankful.

A connoisseur of gratitude

Notice that the more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are the victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego -- your need to possess and control -- and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous -- large souled.

~ from HYMNS TO AN UNKNOWN GOD by Sam Keen
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A grateful and humble heart

By teaching in silence and by bringing down the force of the Light, you are asking for a very deep and very intense surrender. What is surrender?

To offer everything to the Divine is surrender. To give our live our lives to the Divine is surrender. Simplicity is surrender...Always remember, no matter how great we are, that there is something greater -- the Divine. To be humble is surrender...Whatever you do, give it to God with a grateful and humble heart.

~ from ANSWERS by Mother Meera
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Prayer opens the heart

Prayer opens the heart. Each time we pray we are connecting with a greater source of energy and we are amplifying that energy. Our gratitude, thanksgiving, for even the smallest gift we have received, allows our heart to open. The more the heart opens, the larger our vision becomes. This prayer, this energy, links us with all the goodness on the planet.

~ from OPEN MIND by Diane Mariechild
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Grateful for all the gifts of life

As you open yourself to your soul, a calming sense of peace and connectedness develops within you. This peaceful feeling deepens your levels of thought, releases the innate healing powers of your body, reminds you to be grateful for all the gifts of life, and broadens your perspective, so that you can be at peace with the way things are.

~ from "Rekindling the Fires of Your Soul" by Jack Canfield
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In gratitude, I realize that I must always be ready to shift

We seat ourselves so that we are evenly spaced from one another and begin to meditate. In my own meditation, I see how I have tried to control a situation in which a friend wanted to participate -- a situation that was actually beyond my control. In retrospect, I recognize that the presence of my friend has been a blessing. In gratitude, I realize that I must always be ready to shift and adapt, for in rigid resistance, I might miss my greatest opportunities.

~ from JOURNEY TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS by Jim Berenholtz
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You can add enjoyment and meaning to any task

You can add enjoyment and meaning to any task by beginning each one with an awareness of the Divine Presence and by taking a moment of silence to be grateful for all you are able to do! Even the most difficult or mundane task can be done effortlessly and joyfully when approached with an attitude of thanksgiving. You are open to new creativity, new energy, and new inspiration. While working, focus on the Divine Presence, and see how the day goes by with ease and efficiency ... see how your work is blessed.

~ Unknown
Unknown gratitude

To learn to be grateful for each challenge

To learn to be grateful for each challenge, every heart, every tear, as well as for the unexpected joy and love you encounter, is a lesson of great growth. Every experience is a step closer to your eventual union with the Source of All Creation. Even a moment of expressing your gratitude for your own creation, your own eternal life each day brings you closer to the love and power within.

~ from "Children of the Light" Newsletter ... Issue #55
Unknown Children Of The Light gratitude

The refusal to reeive

It is hard to explain to a loving person who can only give, what the refusal to receive does to would-be givers. If our gifts come out of the substance of who we are, to refuse our gifts is a rejection of our very self. At the same time, the turning away of a gift destroys the reciprocity of love. In place of mutuality, it sets up a hierarchy of love that makes the one who always receives and whose gifts are refused feel empty, powerless, and incompetent to love well, and so unable in turn to receive from the beloved with a grateful heart.

~ from MEMORIES OF GOD by Roberta C. Bondi
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Each thing I have received

Each thing I have received, from Thee it came,
Each thing for which I hope, from Thy love it will come,
Each thing I enjoy, it is of Thy bounty,
Each thing I ask comes of Thy disposing.

~ Celtic prayer of gratitude
Anonymous Celtic Prayer gratitude

Gratitude is the vision of the Giver

Gratitude is the vision of the Giver, not of the gift. It comes from God. Hope and fear are like the two wings of a bird when it is flying straight to its destination. If one wing fails, its flight fails and if both fail, it dies. Hope is the vision of God in perfect beauty.

~ from THE SECRET SHRINE ed. by Catharine Hughes
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In all things may we be grateful

In all things may we be grateful, our hearts open to joy.
O Blessed one, speak to us within our hearts;
let your Voice be heard.
As we listen and heed your Word, joy will be our song of thanks.
As you lead us into the Silence, we become friends with solitude;
With trust in You, our lives become simple, with assurance
and peace leaving no room for fear.
All that we have is gift from You, O Beloved,
all that we are is Yours as well.
May we come to see that all we give to others,
we give to ourselves and You.

~ Anonymous
Anonymous gratitude

Best of all is to preserve everything in a pure, still hear

Best of all is to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song.

~ Konrad von Gesner
Konrad von Gesner gratitude

The ability to live each moment

The hieroglyphy for peace is a simple loaf of bread set on a reed mat. It implies nurturing, simplicity, contentment, and rest, a prayer of thankfulness before a meal, an offering made.

The heart is contented because it receives what it needs and its needs are simple: silence, prayer, nourishment, presence. Simplicity of the heart keeps our aims and purposes in life clear... In peace we contemplate our lives and concentrate our energies on the true desires of the heart aligned with God.

We learn that patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to live each moment, knowing that we will be attended to by God.

~ Normandi Ellis
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True prayer

True prayer expresses gratitude for what already is...

~ Anonymous
Unknown gratitude

October 1996 (Vol. IX, NO. 9)

May autumn BLESSINGS be with you!

Now are come the days of brown leaves

Now are come the days of brown leaves. They fall from the trees; they flutter on the ground. ... I hear them tell you of their borning days, when they did come into the world as leaves. ... Today, they were talking of the time before their borning days of the springtime. ... They told how they were a part of earth and air, before their tree-borning days. And now they are going back. They go back to the earth again. But they do not die.

~ from THE SINGING CREEK WHERE THE WILLOWS GROW by Opal Whitely
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Am I dead?

Lying alone in the pasture, dark except for the magnetic full moon. There is an overwhelming sense of quietness. My being is part of the earth and part of the pure white light of the moon at the same time. Nothing else is significant. For a second I wonder, "Am I dead?" It isn't important -- I am spending an hour in God's hands, and it will become part of me.

~ "But How Can I Be the Moon?" -- age 16
Anonymous But How Can I Be The Moon? death

The light we encounter on the road of death

In that moment of awareness, I had an epiphany, that the light we encounter on the road of death is our being in the act of coming home to itself. I understood that light is our natural state, but that we human beings must help each other as we move toward the shores of light. ...Being in the light is knowing we must get others into it. ...The light is where we belong. Everyone who is not in the light is looking forward to being there. So we leave the light to go and experience the need for light and thus come back to it anew.

~ from OF WATER AND THE SPIRIT by Malidoma Patrice Some
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We do not get to choose how we are going to die

We do not get to choose how we are going to die. Or When.
We can only decide how we are going to live. Now.

~ Nan Merrill
Nan Merrill death

Our hundred secret senses

The world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true. I once thought love was supposed to be nothing but bliss. I now know it is also worry and grief, hope and trust. ... If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses.

~ from THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES by Amy Tan
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This is thy hour, O Soul

This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless.
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done.
Thee fully forth emerging silent, gazing,
pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

~ Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman death

Standing by my father through the long journey into his own death

I am not sure at what point I realized that the man whom I had seen as my all-powerful and invincible father not only wanted me as I am, but also needed me to stand by him through the long journey into his own death. My father needed my friendship. It still seems to me to be an astonishing gift of God's grace that in the last years of his life I was able to stand with him as his friend who was his adult child.

~ from MEMORIES OF GOD by Roberta C. Bondi
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Mourn not for those that die

Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die,
Nor I, nor thou, nor any one of these,
Ever was not, nor ever will not be,
For ever and for ever afterwards,
All, that doth live, lives always! ...
That which is can never cease to be;
That which is not will not exist.

~ from SONG CELESTIAL by Edwin Arnold
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Death before dying

The only way to avoid death is not to be born in the first place. In death there is union with the Beloved. The real skill is to reach the secret of death before dying.

We prepare for death, or rather eternity, by consciously adjusting the focus of our life so that it is not upon our personality and the flowing world that spawns upon it, but instead upon our individuality and the Great Fullness with which we are one. This process of focusing our attention is called meditation. In meditation we die to the personality and are reborn as something much greater. That rebirth is not a sudden or one-time event, but is a gradual process in which we become ever more focused on who and what we really are behind the mask of personality ... the process of dying to death by being reborn to reality.

~ from "Death and Meditation" by John Algeo
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Summer is already growing like a seed in the depth of winter

We each possess a deeper level of being ...
which loves paradox. It knows that summer is already
growing like a seed in the depth of winter. It know
that the moment we are born, we begin to die. It knows
that all of life shimmers, in shades of becoming
--that shadow and light are always together,
the visible mingled with the invisible.
When we sit in the stillness we are profoundly active.
Keeping silent, we can hear the roar of existence.
Through our willingness to be the one we are,
we become one with everything.

~ from SHARING SILENCE by Gunilla Norris
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If we want to die well, we must learn to live well

Naturally, most of us would like to die a peaceful death, but it is clear that we cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear.  So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.

~ The Dalai Lama
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Come to me at my grave

When I am dead, come to me at my grave, and the more often, the better. Whatever is on your soul, whatever may have happened to you, come to me as when I was alive and, kneeling on the ground, cast all your bitterness upon my grave. Tell me everything and I shall listen to you, and all the bitterness will fly away from you. And as you spoke to me when I was alive, do so now. For I am living, and I shall be forever.

~ inscription on the tombstone of St. Seraphim
St. Seraphim death

Death as an act of communion

Teach me to treat my death as an act of communion.

~ Teilhard de Chardin
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