Waiting itself becomes prayer as we give our waiting to God. In waiting we begin to get in touch with the rhythms of life—stillness and action, listening and decision. They are the rhythms of God. It is in the everyday and the commonplace that we learn patience,...
…until we are quiet and listen, we can never know what is really going on—even in ourselves. Especially in ourselves. Silence frightens us because it is silence that brings us face-to-face with ourselves. It tells us what we’re obsessing about. it reminds us of what...
Seasons of waiting are seasons of contemplation—of quietness and resting in God, of letting go, of self-yielding. They are times when we watch and listen with the eyes and ears of our heart. Advent, more than any other liturgical season, is about this kind of...
Prayer is first and foremost the active presence of the Holy Spirit in our personal and communal lives. Through the disciplines of solitude and community we try to remove—slowly, gently, yet persistently—the many obstacles which prevent us from listening to God’s...
When I am constantly running, there is no time for being. When there is no time for being, there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling...
Until you hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will not be able to hear him say “I thirst” in the heart of the poor.
I sit on my favorite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busyness, time to be. I’ve long since stopped feeling guilty about taking being time; it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it… When I am...
Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest...