If we want to hear something we must prepare ourselves to perceive by being still. If we ourselves are talking, or if our own thoughts, wishes and concerns are speaking within us, the noise they make will render us unable to hear. Hence directions for meditating always begin by requiring us to create inner stillness and emptiness as a means of making room for what is to be received. Mention is made of “turning off”, of “concentrating” the scattered consciousness, of entering upon the “mysterious path inward” and so forth. It would, however, be reasonable to doubt that such efforts, in their mere negativity, already belong to that positive readiness to listen that distinguishes Christian meditation from other kinds in which this readiness is superfluous because no Word comes from God.

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