silence: a spiritual discipline

How can we hear . . . if we don’t listen?

How can we listen . . . when there is so much noise

. . . in our heads?

. . . in our hearts?

. . . in our lives?

How can we hear . . . through the din and the clamor

. . . the inner teacher?

. . . the still small voice?

How can we see . . . if we don’t look?

How can we look . . . with such allure and wanting

. . . in our heads?

. . . in our hearts?

. . . in our lives?

How can I see . . . through all of the glitz and the glamour.

. . . my inner light?

Give me peace

Give me silence

. . . in my head

. . . in my heart

. . . in my life.

Every moment of every day

Everywhere that I go

And in everything that I do.

“If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.” (Thomas Merton in Seeds of Contemplation, p. 131)

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