Stillness

“Stillness is where you meet with the essence of things…In stillness we can begin to let go of external voices, stereotypes, and clichés that crowd out original, personal and internal voices. Those discordant outer voices fade away in stillness. Stillness is a place of rooting oneself in a much larger field of being.”(John Fox, Finding What You Didn’t Lose)

"When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither fight nor flight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own."
-Scott Russel Sanders 

“With silence, problems appear in a less somber light, in their real dimensions, and seen wholly tractable. Daily worries lose their force, until they appear banal. Hurrying makes no sense. To where am I running, you ask yourself, and why am I running so? Anguish does not exist here any more. All is in its place and will be faced calmly, in good time.” (Melodia)

”Deep down, we know that when we step back, breathe, allow our agitation to settle, and simply start paying attention, we often see new possibilities in situations that once seem intractable… only in this contemplative state are we able to touch the truth…” (Parker Palmer, The Politics of the Brokenhearted)

‎”The best in art and life comes from a center – something urgent and powerful, an idea or emotion that insists on its being. From that insistence, a shape emerges and creates its structure out of passion. If you begin with a structure, you have to make up the passion, and that’s very hard to do.” (Roger Rosenblatt)

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather around us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” (William Butler Yeats from Earth, Fire, & Water)

Mother Teresa was once asked in an interview, “What do you say when you pray?” She replied, “Nothing, I just listen.” So the reporter asked, “Well then, what does God say to you?” Her answer, “Nothing much, He just listens.” (Shane Claiborn, Prayers for Ordinary Radicals)

Bedouin Guide: “Why do you rush around so? When you hurry, you lose things. But when we slow down, things come to you.” (via Deborah Wickering)

An archaeologist once hired some Inca tribesmen to lead him to an archaeological site deep in the mountains. After they had been moving for some time the tribesmen stopped and insisted they would go no further. The archaeologist grew impatient and then angry. But no matter how much he cajoled the tribesmen would not go any further. The all of a sudden the tribesmen changed their attitude. They picked up the gear and set off once more. When the bewildered archaeologist asked why they had stopped and refused to move for so long, the tribesmen answered, “We had been moving too fast and had to wait for our souls to catch up.”

Source: based on a story told in the movie Beyond the Clouds

Life’s Rhythm Is Silence

“Life is not to be regarded as an uninterrupted flow of words which is finally silenced by death. Its rhythm develops in silence, comes to the surface in moments of necessary expression, returns to deeper silence, culminates in a final declaration, then ascends quietly into the silence of Heaven which resounds with unending praise.”

Thomas Merton

Source: No Man Is an Island

“Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence … What are the fruits of silence? They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character.”
Ohiyesa

‎”Solitude can be a home coming to your own deepest belonging.” (John O’Donohue)

“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)

“The highest truth cannot be put into words. Therefore the greatest teacher has nothing to say. He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching)

“It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.” (Thomas Merton)

“In The Silence Of The Heart God Speaks. If You Face God In Prayer And Silence, God Will Speak To You. Then You Will Know That You Are Nothing. It Is Only When You Realize Your Nothingness, Your Emptiness, That God Can Fill You With Himself. Souls Of Prayer Are Souls Of Great Silence.” (Mother Teresa)

“Prayer Is Not Hearing Yourself Talk, But Being Silent, Staying Silent And Waiting Until You Hear God.” (Soren Kierkegaard)

“A man prayed and, at first, he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until, in the end, he realized that prayer is listening.” (Kierkegaard).