Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God.

“God is that reality whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”11

Exterior isolation is overcome in interior communion.

Our unknowing goes deeper into God than our knowing goes.

Paul looks within and sees not Paul but Christ. Are Paul and Christ two separate things? They are two separate things from the perspective of creation, yes, but from the perspective of the transformation of awareness, no.

Contemplative practice is a skill, a discipline that facilitates a process that is out of one’s direct control, but it does not have the capacity to determine an outcome.

God is always Self-giving; it is a question of removing the obstacles that make it difficult to receive this Self-gift.

we are going to speak of what a human being is, we have not said enough until we speak of God.

Union is seen to be the fundamental reality and separateness a highly filtered mental perception.

Divine love is forgiving love. Sorrow must be allowed to blossom into self-forgetful love of God.