Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Silence of the Soul

My soul is silent before God. Like the infant who is nursed and becomes calmed at its mother's breast and finds all its wishes fulfilled here, like the young boy who is speechless gazing upon his hero and leader, like the crying child that yearns for its mother to lay her gentle hand upon its brow and dispel and silence all its cares, like the young girl who quietly reflects on the prospect of one day becoming a mother, like the man who finds all his passion and restlessness clamed by the gaze of his beloved woman, like the person who becomes quiet before the eyes of a loyal friend, like a sick person who is calmed by the physician, like the old person who becomes calm before the face of death, like all of us who are silenced in reverence and awe at the heart of nature, under the starry heavens - just so should the soul be calmed from all the restlessness and chaos and haste, before the eyes of God.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from a sermon delivered to his congregation in Barcelona, Spain, on the Sixth Sunday after Trinity, July 15, 1928

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