Waiting . . .

Invitation to slowing and stilling . . .

When the time comes, I ask you to take up your position for prayer (and sitting is usually best for most of us) and then, having asked the help of the Holy Spirit, to be content to wait patiently, expectantly, lovingly, longingly.  Try to realize that this is all you can do for yourself. God must do the rest.  See yourself as the parched ground looking upwards waiting patiently for the rain to fall.  You can only wait.    –Brother Roger of Taize

When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest.  When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you, tell you of its unreality and of the Reality of God.  But when your mind is silent, then the forest becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God. – Thomas Merton

Why are you so afraid of silence, silence is the root of everything.  If you spiral into its void, a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear – Rumi

Silence is painful, but in silence things take form, and we must wait and watch.  IN us, in our secret depth, lies the knowing element which sees and hears that which we do not see nor hear.  All our perceptions, all the things we have done, all that we are today, dwelt once in that knowing, silent depth, that treasure chamber in the soul.  And we are more than we think.  We are more than we know.  That which is more than we think and know is always seeking and adding to itself while we are doing – or think we are doing nothing.  But to be conscious of what is going on is our depth is to help it along.  When sub consciousness becomes consciousness, the seeds in our winter-clad selves turn to flowers, and the silent life in us sings with all its might – Kahlil Gibran

I stand at the threshold and wait.  Watching, listening, scanning the horizon.  My soul is filled with wonder and beauty.  My lungs expand with deep breathing from the beginning of time.  Silence fills my breath, penetrating deep into my core and the outer reaches of my toes, fingers and very tips of the ends of the hairs on my head.  I am filled with breath, silence, beauty, wonder, hope, vastness and expanse.  Deep blue skies, puffy clouds, green grass and carpets of wildflowers . . .I cross the threshold and enter in ( Sharon Richards)