In the beginning ...

Some time back, I was having lunch with a friend and she asked me if I still believe what Catholics believe. People just assume I am Christian and, knowing that I used to be in a monastery, assume I am probably mostly still Catholic. These are gratuitous assumptions, but it is perhaps typical of Americans in general, to assume that just about everyone is "Christian" in some vague sense.

As I tried to figure out how to answer that question honestly, it came to me that what I most profoundly believe is inexpressible. I can say words like "God" or "Reality" or "Higher Power" or even "Jesus", but does the person who hears me hear what I believe? I suspect not.

So now my mantra -- this is a pretty oxymoronic thing to say -- is, "In the beginning was Silence." 

John of the Cross, represented in that image, once told a group of nuns, "If anything is wanting, it is not writing or speaking, but silence and action."