I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative.
There is one big misunderstanding of the monastics leaving society.
There are times when life's just real quiet and simple. I sometimes get tired of people saying, "Well, what are you really like?"
Life ought to be lived on a basis of silence, where truth blossoms.
Speed damages our souls because living fast consumes every ounce of our energy. Speed has a deafening roar that drowns our the whispering voices of our souls and leaves Jesus as a diminishing speck in the rearview mirror.
There would never be a way for me to live comfortably with people. Maybe I'd become a monk. I'd pretend to believe in God and live in a cubicle, play an organ and stay drunk on wine.
I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully while it goes by.
I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.
