Silence

The reality that is present to us and in us:

call it Being…Silence.

And the simple fact that by being attentive,

by learning to listen

(or recovering the natural capacity to listen),

we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness

that it cannot be explained:

the happiness of being at one with everything

in that hidden ground of Love

for which there can be no explanations…

May we all grow in grace and peace,

and not neglect the silence that is printed

in the center of our being.

It will not fail us.

~ Thomas Merton ~
From a letter to Dr. Amiya Chakravarty, April 13, 1967

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Ask the World to Reveal Its Quietude

Ask the world to reveal its quietude—
not the silence of machines when they are still,
but the true quiet by which birdsongs,
trees, bellows, snails, clouds, storms
become what they are, and are nothing else.

~ Wendell Berry ~
From Sabbaths 2001

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