A new series of meditations begins at http://johntheprecursor.blogspot.com/

I thought someone famous - probably Tillich or Merton or Bonhoeffer - had written, "Finally we understand that prayer is to be silent and listen for the word of God," or something similar.

But despite the power of Google, I cannot find what I seem to remember.

Finally prayer is being present with God. There are precious moments when God is so present that a bit of small talk does not seem out of place. But mostly, to be present with God is to be so embarrassed, so surprised, so in love, and so in awe as to be silent.

Here is Thomas Merton on silence:

With this inner self we have to come to terms in silence. That is the reason for choosing silence. In silence we face and admit that gap between the depths of our being, which we consistently ignore, and the surface which is so often untrue to our own reality. We recognize the need to be at home with ourselves in order that we may go out to meet others, not just with the mask of affability, but with real commitment and authentic love.

If we are afraid of being alone, afraid of silence, it is perhaps because of our secret despair of inner reconciliation. If there is no hope of being at peace with ourselves in our own personal loneliness and silence, we will never be able to face ourselves at all: we will keep running and never stop. And this flight from the self is, as the Swiss philosopher Max Picard pointed out, a “flight from God.” After all, it is in the depths of the conscience that God speaks, and if we refuse to open up inside and look into these depths, we also refuse to confront the invisible God who is present within us. This refusal is a partial admission that we do not want God to be God any more than we want ourselves to be our true selves.

Just as we have a superficial, external mask which we put together with words and actions that do not fully represent all that is in us, so even believers deal with a God who is made up of words, feelings, reassuring slogans, and this is less the God of faith than the product of religious and social routines. Such a “god” can come to substitute for the truth of the invisible God of faith, and though this comforting image may seem real to us, his is really a kind of idol. His chief function is to protect us against a deep encounter with our true inner self and with the true God.

Silence is therefore important even in the life of faith and in our deepest encounter with God. We cannot always be talking, praying in words, cajoling, reasoning, verbalizing, or keeping up a kind of devout background music. Much of our well-meant interior religious dialogue is, in fact, a smoke screen and an evasion. Much of it is simply self-reassurance, and in the end it is little better than a form of self-justification. Instead of really meeting God in the nakedness of faith in which our inmost being is laid bare before him, we act out an inner ritual that has no function but to allay anxiety.

The purest faith has to be tested by silence in which we listen for the unexpected, in which we are open to what we do not yet know, and in which we slowly and gradually prepare for the day when we will reach out to a new level of being with God. True hope is tested by silence in which we have to wait on the Lord in the obedience of unquestioning faith. Isaiah recorded the word of Yahweh to his rebellious people who were always abandoning him in order to enter into worthless political and military alliances. “Your safety lies in ceasing to make leagues, your strength is in quiet faith” (Isa. 30:15). Or as another translation has it, “Your salvation lies in conversion and tranquillity, your strength in complete trust.” Older texts say, “In silence and hope shall your strength be.” The idea is that faith demands the silencing of questionable deals and strategies.

Faith demands the integrity of inner trust which produces wholeness, unity, peace, genuine security. Here we see the creative power and fruitfulness of silence. Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective of our own lives in relations to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it.

Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence. It helps us to concentrate on a purpose that really corresponds not only to the deepest needs of our own being but also to God’s intentions for us.

... and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.

Fear or hope of the next life does not - yet - motivate me much.

I believe with atypical assurance that through Jesus we are forgiven. And while I have some notions of divine justice, I am either insufficiently self-critical or sufficiently trusting in God's mercy that the prospect of justice does not propel me.

Neither does the prospect of an eternity with God transform my impatience with the present. I can imagine the spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual implications of perceiving this life as something akin to one hour during the summer of my seventh year. But such a heavenly vision, remains more visionary than real.

Martin Luther King spoke of the "fierce urgency of now." In much of Reinhold Niebuhr's work, we also sense this full engagement with the present moment. Niebuhr prays for serenity, but we often aim our prayers at that which eludes us.

Urgency and serenity are tough to combine. But to do so may be to achieve the wholeness of justice and mercy, prophecy and love, work and rest to which we are called.

That I may be reasonably happy in this life...

Given the reality of this world, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the sin and hardship of this life, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the potential of this day and this moment, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the capacity of my reason, may I understand reality, accepting what I cannot change while noticing and advancing opportunities for change.

And in failure, success, and in every endeavor, may I be reasonably happy.

trusting that you will make all things right, if I surrender to your will...

While I am not sure of the first clause, I endeavor to fulfill the second clause.

Does God make all things right? If so, right is beyond my knowing.

I can indulge in various thought experiments to make it so. Such as, God used the Nazi holocaust to undermine the foundations prejudice across the world. After Hitler racial, religious, and other forms of bigotry became indefensible and are gradually being eliminated.

Even if this were true. Does it make right the Holocaust? Not to me.

I seek to surrender to God's will so that I might not contribute to evil. I seek to surrender to God's will so that I might join with God to prevent evil. In surrendering I tend the wounds of evil. I don't expect - God forgive me - for God to make all things right.

A collection of articles on Mark Rothko - including the painting above - is available from The Guardian.

taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it...

To be realistic is to observe accurately.

The realist is especially self-aware of filtering observations through expectation.

Even Jesus had expectations, of the woman at the well for example.

But Jesus was wonderfully adept at recognizing when his observations did not match his expectation and adjusting to what he observed.

Rather than my expectations being confirmed, I pray for keen observation, creative insight, and disciplined engagement.

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace...

If something is hard, I wonder if it is right.

I don't think this at the first or even second hard turn.

But by the third or fourth hard turn - especially in quick succession - I will certainly wonder.

Is it hard because creating is not always easy or because the creating is ill-matched to the context?

Hardship is validated or not in its intention and, even more, in its outcome.

If hardship is an output of self-assertion in any of it varied forms, I doubt its value and suspect the hardship actually diminishes self and others.

If hardship is an input to preserving relationships, serving others, creating beauty, doing what is good and discovering what is true, then the hardship is a pathway to what is worthwhile.

O God, help me to distinquish one from the other.