The deep, clear truths of spiritual life are beyond words.
We try to use words to express them, describe them, understand them, control them, but we fail. Words are not able to quantify or communicate the spiritual life within us and all around us. Only silence can come close.
Our efforts to talk or to write about spiritual life inevitably fall short.
The writing and the talking, the listening and the reading, are not about getting it right. All of my efforts to understand and describe are shining a flashlight into the night sky. I am not able to illuminate the universe.
I shine my lights into the sky to show its immensity and to encourage other people to look for themselves.
We toss a stone into a pool not to fill in the pool, but to send ripples across the surface. We will not plumb the water’s depth. We lose sight of the stone.
The light we send out into the universe reminds us of the fire lit in our hearts. The ripples we see crossing the water echo the sacred rhythms in us.
The spiritual life all around us fills us, pouring through us into the people we meet.
We cannot explain it, we do not even spend time thinking about it very often, but we know it is true.
More and more, words become obstacles to understanding. We try to use words to measure and evaluate spiritual life, to ensure that our lives are exactly right.
Words cannot do justice to spiritual life. Spiritual life is so much deeper, so much more true, so much more than words can describe.
We remember spiritual life in silence.
Which words get in your way most often?
When will you remember your spiritual life in silence today?
[Image by MichaKlim]
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