Deep Quiet

"I believe instead that we all of us have a kind of sacred commission to be happy -- in the sense of being free to breathe and move, in the sense of being able to bless our own lives, because through all our times we can learn and grow, and through all our times, if we can keep our ears open, God speaks to us his saving word...

I have written at length here about the way God speaks through the hieroglyphics of the things that happen to us, and I believe that is true. But I have come to believe more and more that God also speaks through the fathomless quiet... which is beyond the power of anything that happens to us to touch, although many things that happen to us block our access to it, make us forget even that it exists.

I believe that this quiet and holy place in us is God's place and that it is what marks us as God's.

Even when we have no idea of seeking it, I think various things can make us fleetingly aware of its presence - a work of art, beauty, sometimes sorrow or joy, sometimes just the quality of a moment that apparently has nothing special about it at all, like the sound of water over stones in a stream or sitting alone with your feet up at the end of a hard day.

What deadens us most to God's presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought."

- Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets