Dear Friends,
We pray for you a Happy and Blessed New Year!
Today's Meditation is a reflection by David Arthur Auten on Silence.
We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.
In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.
We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!
With our love and care,
Ron and Jean
MEDITATION: David Arthur Auten: Silence
Silence
There is a reason why nature’s beauty can leave you speechless. The numinous needs no descriptives. Language is a utility that quickens the mind but deadens the senses. It is difficult to really see the majesty of the maple, actually feels its coarse bark, taste its dripping sweetness, hear its wind combed leaves, take in its unusual aroma when all of this is filtered through the restrictions of some rhetoric. Words wound perception. While affording the gift of communication each linguistic label limits the mystery and magnificence of what lies bare in the wildness of the world. This is the nature of the nominal. Through no fault of their own letters create a liminality. Life is manageable because every thing has a name, containing and restraining its splendor. Silence thus affords a unique opportunity: to experience the sanctuary of the world, as well as your own inner sanctum, with wonder once again.
Look around and behold. Close your eyes and listen. Like clouds, evanescent thoughts float aimlessly through the panorama of the mind. Then, as the chatter of self-talk settles, the stillness allows feelings once neglected to come out from hiding. In the quiet you may suddenly feel grief, a clandestine sadness you did not know was there grounding you to the real. You might likewise be surprised by joy, for no reason at all, other than the raw, unpredictable thrill of being, palpably present in the absence of words. Though hard to articulate, which may be no accident, in the emptiness there is a sense of peace, and something close to divine. Thomas Keating said silence is God’s original language; everything else is mere commentary.