an ancient Christian view that the foundation of every land is silence (Ws 18:14), where God simply and perpetually gives Himself, This Self-gift is manifested in the creation, in the people of God and their inspired (if stumbling) pursuit of a just society, and most fully, in the Christian view of things, in Jesus Christ.

From this depth God is seen to be the ground of both peace and chaos, one with ourselves and one with all the world, the ground “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Awareness is the eye of silence. The riddle of the Second Doorway helps us deepen this silence by training the attention not to spin commentary on the thoughts and feelings that we become aware of.

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

Before the First Doorway, the prayer word functioned much as shield or place of refuge. We could see that a thought had stolen our attention and then we returned to the prayer word. As we approach the Second Doorway, the prayer word is steadying our gaze on something more subtle: the obsessive mental patterns that are shaping and driving the though

separation from God is real, but the meeting of stillness reveals that this perceived separation does not have the last word.

It is crucial to be able to spot these stories, for there will be no liberation until we learn to drop the elaborate commentaries on our anger, and we cannot drop them until we can see ourselves doing it.

We must long for truth, freedom, loving communion with the silent depths of God.

silence as a context for seeking God was co-opted into silence as avoidance, the cold silence of the cold shoulder. She learned to manage fear by avoiding that woman.