Aflame: Learning from Silence

“Do you believe in God?” a friend abruptly asks, after I’m back in the world. “It hardly matters.” “It does to the people who open their doors to you.” “It does to them. But for me it’s like asking if I believe in this room, or in you.” A pause. “If you come upon something that feels real—this moment—belief doesn’t really come into it.”

“It’s more, I suppose, that I’m glad to be away from the self I am when other people are around.”

There’s no such thing as dead time when everything is alive with possibility.