The woman whispered,"God, speak to me"
And a meadowlark sang.
But, the woman did not hear.
So the woman yelled "God, speak to me!"
And,the thunder rolled across the sky.
But, the woman did not listen.
The woman looked around and said, "God let me see you." And a star shined brightly.
But the woman did not notice.
And, the woman shouted, "God show me a miracle." And,a life was born.
But, the woman did not know.
So, the woman cried out in despair,
"Touch me God and let me know you are here." Whereupon, God reached down and touched the woman.
But,the woman brushed the butterfly away and walked on.
Don't miss out on a blessing because it isn't packaged the way that you expect.
~AT--ONE--MENT~
When a man whose marriage was in trouble sought his advice, the Master said, "You must learn to listen to your wife."
The man took this advice to heart and returned after a month to say that he had learned to listen to every word his wife was saying.
Said the Master with a smile, "Now go home and listen to every word she isn't saying."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL: A pair of good ears will drink dry a hundred tongues. --Benjamin
Franklin
"Silence is one great art of conversation."
-Anon.
"Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."
-Kin Hubbard
.......To know reality you have to know beyond knowing...... Awareness means to watch, to observe what is going on within you and around you. "Going on" is pretty accurate: Trees, grass, flowers, animals, rock, all of reality is moving. One observes it, one watches it. How essential it is for the human being not just to observe himself or herself, but to watch all of reality. Are you imprisoned by your concepts? Do you want to break out of your prison? Then look; observe; spend hours observing. Watching what? Anything. The faces of people, the shapes of trees, a bird in flight, a pile of stones, watch the grass grow. Get in touch with things, look at them. Hopefully you will then break out of these rigid patterns we have all developed, out of what our thoughts and our words have imposed on us. Hopefully we will see. What will we see? This thing that we choose to call reality, whatever is beyond words and concepts. This is a spiritual exercise—connected with spirituality—connected with breaking out of your cage, out of the imprisonment of the concepts and words.
How sad if we pass through life and never see it with the eyes of a child. This doesn't mean you should drop your concepts totally; they're very precious. Though we begin without them, concepts have a very positive function. Thanks to them we develop our intelligence. We're invited, not to become children, but to become like children. We do have to fall from a stage of innocence and be thrown out of paradise; we do have to develop an "I" and a "me" through these concepts. But then we need to return to paradise. We need to be redeemed again. We need to put off the old man, the old nature, the conditioned self, and return to the state of the child but without being a child. When we start off in life, we look at reality with wonder, but it isn't the intelligent wonder of the mystics; it's the formless wonder of the child. Then wonder dies and is replaced by boredom, as we develop language and words and concepts. Then hopefully, if we're lucky, we'll return to wonder again.
Anthony de Mello, SJ
from: Getting Concrete
Let no one come to you
without leaving better and happier.
Mother Teresa
CONTEMPLATION
The Master would often say that Silence alone brought transformation.
But no one could get him to define what Silence was. When asked he would laugh, then hold his forefinger up against his tightened lips — which only increased the bewilderment of his disciples.
One day there was a breakthrough when someone asked, "And how is one to arrive at this Silence that you speak of?"
The Master said something so simple that his disciples studied his face for a sign that he might be joking. He wasn't. He said, "Wherever you may be, look when there is apparently nothing to see; listen when all is seemingly quiet."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
Chuang-tzu (c.369-c.286 BC)
This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
~William Shakespeare~
