Human
Solitaire
“We are
fascinated by the words, but where we meet is in the silence behind
them.”
Ram Dass
We Westerners are truly
fascinated with words—we talk our heads off, we listen all day to
talk radio, to podcasts, and interviews, and audio books, and then we
discuss, and argue, and debate. We walk around with ear phones
plugged in, and hardly see the world around us. We read words, we
write words, and we immerse ourselves in speech. And it doesn't have
to be well-thought-out speech, or proper speech, or even truthful
speech. We just love to talk, talk, talk. And, always we think that
we're communicating when we do. I confess that I'm the first in line
of those who are in love with words.
What I realize, though,
is that I sort things out, I really ponder what's been said, in the
silence afterward. In my own inner silence, I pull out thoughts,
impressions, remembered facial expressions and body language, and I
think about what they mean—what do they tell me about this person,
about myself? That's when I begin to paint the portrait of who I am,
and who they are, and who we are in relation to one another. Even
then, it's only one frame in a larger narrative. It's kind of like
playing a game of Solitaire, where some of the cards are face-up and
some are face-down, and you only get to see all of them at the end of
the game.
What words could be more
beautiful or meaningful than these:
“'Hope'
is the thing with feathers-
that
perches in the soul-
And sings
the tune without the words-
and never
stops—at all.
And
sweetest—in the Gale—is heard-
And sore
must be the storm-
that could
abash the little Bird
that kept
so many warm.
I've heard
it in the chillest land-
and on the
strangest sea-
Yet—never—in
Extremity
it asked a
crumb—of me.”
Emily
Dickinson (“Hope”)
I hope you will ponder
these words in the silence of your heart today.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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