ideally we nourish our bodies every day and so likewise we should nourish our spirit.

If God is the sculptor, our practice is like a chisel that works effectively and patiently to remove stone.

“We are not referring to some dark corner, but to a vast inner space.”6 According to St. Augustine, this vast inner space of the soul, an “abyss” as he terms it, is completely open and porous to God: “Indeed, Lord, to your eyes, the abyss of human consciousness is naked.”

The Center encompasses all things, even as it indwells all things, the way the sea fills the membrane of the sponge that makes its home in the sea.

Contemplation is the soul’s Copernican revolution.

For us to move deeply into God’s deep movement in us, “whose margins are God’s margins,” as R. S. Thomas puts it, the senses must learn to abide in stillness.

Literally “compassion” means to feel with. The word betokens more a felt solidarity with a person than positive feelings for a particular person.

Contemplative practice proceeds by way of the engaged receptivity of release, of prying loose, of letting go of the need to have our life circumstances be a certain way in order for us to live or pray or be deeply happy.

Boredom heals by diminishing our reliance on this spiritual glitz that keeps us preoccupied with how our prayer is progressing.