silence.

Silence is the discipline that helps us to go beyond the entertainment quality of our lives. There we can let our sorrows & joys emerge from their hidden place & look us in the face, saying: "Don't be afraid; you can look at your own journey, its dark & light sides, & discover your way to freedom." Wherever we find silence, we should cherish it. Because it is in silence that we can truly acknowledge who we are & gradually claim ourselves as a gift from God. In silence we start hearing the voices of darkness: our jealousy & anger, our resentment & desire for revenge, our lust & greed, & our pain over losses, abuses, & rejections. These voices are often noisy & boisterous. They may even deafen us. Our most spontaneous reaction is to run away from them & return to our entertainment. But if we have the discipline to stay put & not let these dark voices intimidate us, they will gradually lose their strength & recede into the background, creating space for the softer, gentler voices of the light. These voices speak of peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, joy, hope, forgiveness, &, most of al, love. They have been speaking to us since before we were born, & they reveal to us that there is no darkness in the One who send us into the world, only light.

-The Only Necessary Thing, Henri Nouwen-