Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.
Interpretation
Silence allows for self-reflection and fosters a sense of completeness.
This quote by Thomas Merton emphasizes the power of silence in enabling individuals to reflect on their lives and understand themselves in a deeper way. It suggests that taking time for silence can help to unify our scattered thoughts and energies, leading to a more balanced perspective on both our own experiences and those of others, ultimately guiding us towards a sense of wholeness.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop to encourage participants to embrace moments of silence.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.
Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on.
People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently.
Socrates said, our only knowledge was_x000D_ _x000D_ "To know that nothing could be known;" a pleasant_x000D_ _x000D_ Science enough, which levels to an ass_x000D_ _x000D_ Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present._x000D_ _x000D_ Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas!_x000D_ _x000D_ Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,_x000D_ _x000D_ That he himself felt only "like a youth_x000D_ _x000D_ Picking up shells by the great Ocean-Truth."
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