Silent Night ...

Rolling Ridge Retreat and Conference Center

The light 

keeps shining
    in the dark,
and darkness 

has never
    put it out.   

John 1:5

Deep within us ...

“Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continually return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us.”

("A Testament of Devotion," Thomas Kelly, Quaker mystic)

PRESENT in the PRESENCE

Photo by Dan Barcus Nov 2012 Lakeview

I am present
I am here
My feet touch the ground
I breathe the air
I see things around me
I hear birds
I see trees
I smell flowers

God is present
God is here
God is everywhere so
He must be here

Creation is present
God's creation envelopes me

God's presence is here
I can’t see it
I can’t hear it
I can’t touch it
I just feel it

One is physical
One is spiritual

When the two meet there is communion

There is Presence

Am I in God's presence
or am I just present?

In the presence there is Peace.

In the presence there is Love.

In the presence there is Growth.

In the presence there is Compassion.

In the presence there is Joy.

In the presence there is Understanding.

I want to be Present in His Presence.  

©Dan Barcus 2009

Thanks Dan!

the Word of God chose to be silent ...

Breathing Christ

In Mary the Word of God chose to be silent for the season measured by God. She, too, was silent; in her the light of the world shone in darkness. Today, in many souls, Christ asks that he may grow secretly, that he may be the light shining in the darkness. In the seasons of our Advent - waking, working, eating, sleeping, being - each breath is a breathing of Christ into the world.

Caryll Houselander
Source: The Reed of God

Seen on the Inward/Outward Blog

the contemplative ...

 ... the contemplative, not only sees and touches what is real, 

but beyond the surface of all that is actual, 

he [and she] attains to communion with Freedom Who is the source of all activity. 

This Reality, this Freedom, is not a concept, not a thing, not an object, 

not even an object of knowledge: 

it is the Living God, the Holy One,

 the One to Whom we dare to utter a Name only 

because [God] has revealed a Name to us, 

but Who is beyond all Names ...

 

The New Man, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux) 1961:15

Weekly Reflection for December 3, 2012

 Merton Institute of Contemplative Living

In God's Silent Embrace

Loving God,

so happy to sleep

in your silent embrace

to know you are

always with me ...

giving me insight

into my soul

as I sleep

sinking deeper

deeper into my self

who am I?

I am me.

 
And the candle keeps vigil
even unlit it keeps vigil
and sings an unsung silence
so beautiful to sleep
to be
here
in my dreams
with friendly creatures
keeping watch
in the twilight
of my unconscious

who am I?

I am me.

so happy to sleep

in God's silent embrace ...

© Cindy Serio

The Great Silence

November 2012 Lakeview

World AIDS Day 2012

Remembering my beautiful friend on World AIDS Day. 

Remembering his art, 

his creativity, 

his fearlessness, 

his smile, and 

his love of Phantom of the Opera :)

Today I celebrate the life of my own Angel of Music!
whose life changed my life.
I am more tolerant.
I am more understanding.
I am more loving.
I am more generous.

Praise God from whom all Blessings flow!
AMEN 

Read my story of him:  Celebrating Life

Give to: The United Methodist Global AIDS Fund
Advance #982345  Representing the commitment of United Methodists to end HIV/AIDS in our world through prevention, treatment, care and support.

Rumi on Silence

A Great Silence overcomes me, 

and I wonder why I ever thought to use language. 

~Rumi

Have you ever had a "great silence" overcome you?   A sense of expansiveness within that grows until peace descends around you and you know ... God is with you, God is within you, God simply IS and I am speech-less in the Presence.

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your Name.

Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.
“I will try,
like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult.
The whole
World is secretly on fire.
The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me.
How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning?
How can he dare
To sit with them
When all their silence
Is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton ~

(The Strange Islands: Poems by Thomas Merton)

Be Still

Be Still and Know that I AM God

~Psalm 46:10a

This half verse from the Psalms sums up my deepest desire as I withdraw physically from the world and enter into a time of retreat.  In this context, retreat means to me that I step off the hamster wheel of life in order to seek a place where outer silence and quiet can begin to still the inner being.  When I am able to "be still" then I am able to re-connect with God without life screaming at me.  I know many people do not feel the need for this but I do.  I find that life has great expectations of me, that I have great expectations of myself, and that I suffer from feeling overwhelmed with my own imperfections.  Somehow in the silence of my inner being, my imperfections are seen through the eyes of God, each flaw a beautiful vessel of grace. 

I try for 30 minutes of silence a day ... a day of silence in a month with spiritual direction ... and several days once per year, sometimes on my own and sometimes in community. 

What is your practice of silence and what have you learned?