“Living without speaking is better than speaking without living, for a person who lives rightly helps us by silence, while one who talks too much annoys us. If words and life go hand in hand, it is the perfection of all philosophy.” — Abba Isodore of Pelusia.

I love the idea of words and life going hand in hand. We live in a noisy, hurried, and disconnected world. Most of us can’t live in a hermitage on a mountaintop or a lovely farm in upstate New York. We are surrounded by schedules and deadlines, devices and notifications, phone trees and recorded voices, crowds, new alerts, schedules and deadlines, obnoxious messages,  rage and grievances, and distractions of a dense, anxious, and demanding society.

Joan Chittister wrote about the new spiritual practice of Interiority for those seeking the spiritual or God-life. Interiority is the essence of contemplation, something I have been practicing all day after my Black Dog visit, which disrupted me and brought me low. I usually try to write myself out of depression, which often works. Words and life, silence, and meditation.

Today, I chose contemplation and silence, words and life. I have a kind of spiritual fantasy about my interior self. I see it as a walk through the darkness with the God within me, and I ask for help in leading me beyond and out of myself to become what some priests call a “vessel of divine life” let loose upon the world.

Finding the motives that drive or thwart me, the feelings that block me, the desires and longings that distract me, and the poisons that delight my soul bring me to the clarity and purpose that is my kind of God. I look for the layers of myself and listen. This, to me, is the key to spiritual growth.

I sometimes read one of the most sacred Rules of Benedict, Prologue 9-13:  “Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: ‘ If you hear God’s voice today, do not harden your hearts.’”

I heard a voice from my God today, softening my heart. I thank the Black Dog for making me quiet and causing me to think.