Might we consider boredom as not only necessary for our life but also as one of its greatest blessings? A gift, pure and simple, a precious chance to be alone with our thoughts and alone with God?

Anyone who listens to the world, anyone who seeks the sacred in the ordinary events of life, has "problems about how to believe.

Here we discover the paradox of the contemplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others.

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

I gave in, and admitted that God was God.

Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.

Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?

All I am saying is relax. Listen to the wind, feel the water. See where life's breeze wants to take you. Look, if God wants to give you a bigger oar or two, he will. He has plenty. There are times, however, when he's trying to blow us one way and we're paddling like crazy the other. Occasionally we just need to stop and be grateful.

The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide to contemplative prayer. "Be willing to be blind, and give up all longing to know the why and how, for knowing will be more of a hindrance than a help." This 1912 edition was edited by Evelyn Underhill, and contains her introduction.

Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it's silent, tranquil, and gentle; it's a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love.

After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence.

How exuberant and boisterous the universe is, Alma! It turns and turns, and the only constant is everything changes. It is a mystery we can only appreciate out of stillness. I'm living through a very interesting stage. My spirit contemplates the changes in my body with fascination, but this contemplation is not from a distance, but from within. My spirit and my body are together in this process.