
A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

deep prayer is not about a physically silent environment, but about the Loving Communion that is Silence itself, and Silence itself is deeper than the presence or absence of sound waves.
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
To get caught up in a buzzing commentary on how irritating the noise is makes for a noisy relationship with noise.
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
Literally “compassion” means to feel with. The word betokens more a felt solidarity with a person than positive feelings for a particular person.
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
I have not met one dedicated person of prayer who walks a very dry, dark path who does not embody many of the cardinal and theological virtues, as well as many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.13 By contrast I know many who have had quite explicit contemplative experiences yet have not integrated these experiences into a life of living faith and
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“If you do not find yourself beautiful yet,” he advises, “act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also, cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to
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Only the person who has renounced obsessive thoughts is a true monk.”
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
that power which is both everywhere and yet nowhere,
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
If God is the sculptor, our practice is like a chisel that works effectively and patiently to remove stone.
Martin Laird • A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation
Silence moves through all sound like water through netting.