Shall we learn again the language of love?

 Image from http://price.baltiblogs.com

We watch time
We fill the spaces in between
with attention to random thoughts


Some take us back 
to the early years
when we commenced our
walking journey

Some refresh the memory
with recent history

But always 
there are feelings
that rock the thoughts
captured by attention


Who knows what goes on in the minds
of those who do not speak?

We rely on spoken language for clues
We rely on behaviors too
But most of all, and increasingly,
we rely on words

They provide us with shortcuts.

not always reliable

often distorting or hiding
unspoken messages

We must learn again
to communicate
without words
in the silent, dynamic language of
gazes into
and away
of 
advances 
and retreats
of
postures
and gestures
of 
contact
and avoidance
so that,

when once again, 
we employ words
they shall be
of
great wisdom
great awareness
great patience
great accuracy
for we will have gained
some mastery over
Attentiveness - 
the language of love

A stillness that just about bursts

Listening to the Silence Living Life Following Jesus

There is animated conversation. Loud. Sometimes I think they may be quarreling. It's not a language I know. But it could well be that they are talking enthusiastically about a generous inheritance they've just received, or a wedding that they are preparing for, or the announcement of something important like the birth of the first great grandson. Who knows?

If I keep the doors of my senses open, I am inclined to think that all of life passes through them. But if I shut them and descend into a valley within me that sits close by my senses, then I become aware of a vastness, beyond the reach of my senses.

There it is colored with unknown colors. There it stirs with silence that is audible and penetrating. There it holds me in cushions of shifting stillness, a glorious mosaic of stories yet to be told. A stillness that just about bursts within me.

The Taste

A walnut kernel shaken against its shell makes
a delicate sound, but

the walnut taste and the sweet oil inside makes
unstruck music. Mystics

call the shell rattling talk, the other, the taste
of silence. We've been speaking

poetry and opening so-called secrets of soul growth
long enough. After

days of feasting, fast, after days of sleeping, stay
awake one night, after these

times of bitter storytelling, joking and serious
considerations, we should

give ourselves two days between layers of baklava
in the quiet seclusion where

soul sweetens and thrives more than with language,

I hear nothing in my ear
but your voice. Heart has

plundered mind of all its
eloquence. Love writes

a transparent calligraphy, so
on the empty page my soul can

read and recollect.

Rumi in The Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks

The Sacred Space of Meaningful Conversation

I notice that people here tend to speak rather slowly, as if they are in no hurry at all and as if they are offering each word as a fresh utterance, a fresh composition. It is so charmingly different to the well-oiled, automated delivery of cliched scripts that I have become accustomed to in Brisbane - tired, old, uninspiring scripts that recycle stale energy, their originality used up a long, long time ago.

Worse yet, these lifeless, conversational detritus are frequently scattered in company to avoid silence, a state apparently so threatening and uncomfortable, it has to be filled with non-creative dialogue:

How are you?

Pretty good, thanks. Yourself.

Yeah, not too bad. Could be worse.

Hot enough for you?

Yeah, it's been shockin'

I had to shower twice this morning. Cold shower.

Me too. They say its gonna stay like this for the rest of the week...


And so it goes. Or does it? And if so, where?

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde at www.thinkexist.com

On the other hand, I was drawn into a different kind of conversation last night, just as we were about to tuck into our 'steam boat'*.

What is the difference between liturgy and ritual?

The five of us at the table remained silent as we pondered the question. After at least a minute, one offered an answer.

Rituals are like habits with certain connotations. Right? But liturgy is...

Someone else sought to fill in the blanks...but stopped.

I acknowledged the first response regarding rituals and waited to see who else might respond. Soon, however, the immediate demands of the steamboat 'ritual' distracted us, or should I say, drew us back to the purpose of our gathering.

I continued to ponder the difference between liturgy and ritual and felt almost ready to offer my answer. Sensing, however, that the timing was not quite right, I refrained and instead allowed my attention to be absorbed by the joyous process of 'trawling' (with a strainer-ladle) freshly cooked assortments of seafood from the cheerfully steaming 'boat' in the center of our table.

The conversation gradually meandered towards apparent paradoxes in the Bible and then onto local politics. No surprise at all as I have long been aware of Malaysians' fondness (or is it an addiction?) for two subjects - religion and politics.

And so our dining, interspersed with periods of silence, progressed to a happy, open-ended closure. Had you been there, you would not have complained of verbosity. You might have been intimidated by the silences though. But, if you were sensitive enough, you would have felt the unspoken respect and care that held us all in the sacred space of meaningful conversation.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
Robert Benchley at www.worldofquotes.com

*In case you're wondering what that is, it comprises a small gas-fueled wok in which a tasty soup is kept boiling and into which you drop all manner of tasty meat and vegetable bits to cook. As they do, you dish them out into your bowl and consume. Our steam boat last night was a seafood affair. Most delicious :-).

I noticed something for the first time

I noticed something for the first time yesterday. Visitors to this house (my oldest brother's, which is rather like the family home), and there is a fairly regular stream 0f them, are able to sit with whoever is at home....in silence!

In all the years I had been a living-in member of this family, we have had people, from close friends to acquaintances, drop in at various times of the day and evening. Whoever is home does whatever s/he can to make them feel welcome and our visitors always do. We have treated them both as guest and as family. And although conversations may have begun animatedly at times, and tentatively at others, they continued meaningfully and in a personal yet sensitive way, often interspersed with periods of quiet - phases in which those present simply shared silence. This has been true for as far back as I can remember.

But yesterday, I actually noticed the shared silence for the first time, having taken it for granted so many times before. And it felt familiar. It felt intimate. It felt so comfortable, so tender, so sacred.

Because in the school of the Spirit
man learns wisdom through humility,
knowledge by forgetting, how to speak
by silence, how to live by dying.

By Johannes Tauler from http://www.quotes.ubr.com/subject-quotes/s/silence-quotes.aspx

My heart continues to thrill in the memory of shared silence!