Let us find a quiet moment, the next opportunity we have to be as quiet as we may be, and let us seek the near Presence of God.   Stay . . . for five minutes. Let us direct no thought toward the day ahead, or even toward the effects and benefits of God’s Life and Love. There will be loads of time for that! Stay for ten minutes if it is possible; stay just to be near. Direct no thought toward peace, righteousness, sin, failure, or joy. That’s the important part. This is not a mental activity. With it we humble our minds to the love of God. Only stay in the His Presence. Let the one determination be to be with Him, to be near, and having made that determination, be near and give the matter no further thought.

         Let your heart be fully delighted in Him, but without words, without summing up. Stay for twenty minutes. For these moments, don’t pray or repent or give thanks or meditate or worry if thoughts and impulses do wander. Ignore thought and impulse of every nature; just ignore them. Direct the heart to enjoy the Lord our God in perfect stillness of soul and mind, where even imperfection is completely unimportant. Just stay.

         Stay longer; stay for half an hour.   When our time is up, we are candidates to remain, here in Cor Unum. Rest assured, there will be time, lots of time, for worship, for thanksgiving, for repentance, for prayer, but in the Presence of a king, even an earthly king, the true servant does not clamor for attention; he waits. We will learn to listen, to watch, to ask, to know, but first we delight in His Nearness for His sake, alone.

         Dear ones, we’ve been together, some of us, for years now. The new volume is underway, and it would be magnificent and magnificently helpful if you would post comments along the way, those of you who are inspired to attempt and to enjoy these practices. Please see my comment on today’s entry … I hope to see yours. Bits and pieces of what you say along the path will be included in the next book, successes and failures and queries, altogether. I’ll let you know and make sure you don’t mind if I include them. For now, if you step into these halls, please share with others the experience of it. And thank you from my heart.

Sennanque Cloister

JShapiro, Wikipedia