How Far Have I To Go To

Silence Has Many Dimensions. It Can Be A Regression And An Escape, A Loss Of Self, Or It Can Be Presence, Awareness, Unification, Self-discovery. Negative Silence Blurs And Confuses Our Identity, And We Lapse Into Daydreams Or Diffuse Anxieties. Positive Silence Pulls Us Together And Makes Us Realize Who We Are, Who We Might Be, And The Distance Between These Two.

Many Poets Are Not Poets For The Same Reason That Many Religious Men Are Not Saints: They Never Succeed In Being Themselves. They Never Get Around To Being The Particular Poet Or The Particular Monk They Are Intended To Be By God. They Never Become The Man Or The Artist Who Is Called For By All The Circumstances Of Their Individual Lives. They Waste Their Years In Vain Efforts To Be Some Other Poet, Some Other Saint...they Wear Out Their Minds And Bodies In A Hopeless Endeavor To Have Somebody Else's Experiences Or Write Somebody Else's Poems.

We Have To Have A Deep, Patient Compassion For The Fears Of Others And Irrational Mania Of Those Who Hate Or Condemn Us.

It Is In Deep Solitude That I Find The Gentleness With Which I Can Truly Love My Brothers. The More Solitary I Am, The More Affection I Have For Them. It Is Pure Affection, And Filled With Reverance For The Solitude Of Others. Solitude And Silence Teach Me To Love My Brothers For What They Are, Not For What They Say.

Detachment From Things Does Not Mean Setting Up A Contradiction Between 'things' And 'god' As If God Were Another Thing And As If Creatures Were His Rivals. We Do Not Detach Ourselves From Things In Order To Attach Ourselves To God, But Rather We Become Detached From Ourselves In Order To See And Use All Things In And For God.