“At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world,
Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait,
listening. After a time, you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world’s word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence.
The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God’s
brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the
ten thousand things the whine of wings. You take a
step in the right direction to pray to this silence,
and even to address the prayer to “World.”
Distinctions blur.Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.”
- Annie Dillard
The best time to pray is when you wake up, and the sun is coming up. Our songs tell us that this is the beautiful time, when your mind and everything else is fresh. Then you pray for yourself, and you pray for your people. And before you go to bed at night, when you see that beautiful painting in the sky, late in the evening, that is when the Creator is speaking to us, speaking to our hearts. If we listen with our hearts, we will do the right thing when he speaks to us, and we will know what he is telling us...My parents taught me how to listen for this...God is our Creator...if we are really listening to him he speaks right to our hearts. Sometimes, if he wants us to give messages, he’ll speak right through us, speak to the people. I think this is really wonderful.
-Sylvia Walulatuma
|
