Subject: Empty Field: Meister Eckhart and Thomas Merton From: LHanawalt@aol.com Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 09:32:14 EDT

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>From Larry:
The language of silence, to partners, for sharing.
I laughed when I substituted "The Field of Partnership" for the word "God" in
the following Matthew Fox rendition of Eckhart's words:

God is a being beyond being and a
   nothingness beyond being.

The most beautiful thing
   which a person can say about God
   would be for that person to remain silent
           from the wisdom of an inner wealth.
   So,
           be silent
                  and quit flapping your gums about God.

(My daughter once said that I talked more about being silent than anyone on
earth.)  Try substituting "the field" for all refererences to God in the
following passage from Merton:

It is necessary that we find the silence of God not only in ourselves but also
in one another.  Unless some other man speaks to us in words that spring from
God and communicate with the silence of God in our souls, we remain isolated
in our own silence, from which God tends to withdraw.  For inner silence
depends on a continual seeking, a continual crying in the night, a repeated
bending over the abyss.  If we cling to a silence we think we have found
forever, we stop seeking God and the silence goes dead within us.  A silence
in which He is no longer sought ceases to speak to us of Him.  A silence from
which He does not seem to be absent, dangerously threatens His continued
presence.  For He is found when He is sought and when He is no longer sought
He escapes us.  He is heard only when we hope to hear Him, and if, thinking
our hope to be fulfilled, we cease to listen, He ceases to speak, His silence
ceases to be vivid and becomes dead, even though we recharge it with the echo
of our own emotional noise.



From ab@e24mp.demon.co.uk Fri Aug 21 10:05:50 1998
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