Perhaps we wouldn’t need chapels if our lives were already clear and calm (a saint or a Jesus may never need to go into a church; he’s always carrying one inside himself). Chapels are emergency rooms for the soul. They are the one place we can reliably go to find who we are and what we should be doing with our own lives—usually by finding all we aren’t, and what is much greater than us, to which we can only give ourselves up.
“I like the silent church,” Emerson wrote, “before the service begins.”
~ Pico Iyer, Where Silence is Sacred
Image: Groteleur
Live & Learn 
Reblogged this on hocuspocus13 and commented:
jinxx♠xoxo
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Thanks for sharing.
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i LOVE the final quote.
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THAT, is the punch line…
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There’s the punch line
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Amen.
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Earth is one BIG church. Our body is the Temple. Love this post, David. Perpetua.
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It may be a chapel to some, a hidden dell to another or a quiet space in crumpled sheets before facing the day…. When we find it for ourselves it makes sense. xo
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Yes Val. I thought the same. Our own a Chapels can take many forms, and all equally effective.
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We saw so many churches while in Italy, but I agree, “I like the silent church”, it holds a special peace.
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Yes Karen, that line sums it up.
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Looking at the window
what can you see?
Light beyond its frame
or the beauty
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Right there…
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🙂
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When I smell Lemon Pledge, I am transported to the church of my childhood: a wee prairie church, not fancy, just sturdy with good bones. I hear the click-click-click of my “Mary Janes” on the polished wooden floors and feel the backs of my thighs stick to the pew as I slide into my seat. I love the people and the music but I like the silence .. the Holy silence .. the best. MJ
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Yes. Silence for me too MJ….
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And I too can smell the lemon pledge
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People allow the renewal of their spirit when quiet and meditating. The Bible explains meditation in many places, and so many students of the bible miss out on meditation because it’s misunderstood.
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I can see that Jon-Mark. I can.
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