My wife and I went away over the past weekend for some rest, reflection and prayer. We sensed a need to reconnect with God, each other, and our own feelings and emotions.

We read a chapter out of a book called “Spiritual Classics” that focused on the life of Paul Tournier (1898 – 1986). He was a deeply religious Christian doctor and counselor who lived and worked in Geneva, Switzerland. He has helped many believers by putting insights of psychology and psychiatry into a Christian perspective.

Here are a few choice quotes that jumped out at us:

Why have you practiced meditation constantly for the past 50 years?

“Modern people lack silence. They no longer lead their own lives; they are dragged along by events. It is a race against the clock. I think that what so many people come to see me for is to find a quiet, peaceful person who knows how to listen and isn’t thinking all the time about what he has to do next. If your life is chock-full already, there won’t be room for anything else. Even God can’t get anything else in. So it becomes essential to cut something out. I’m putting it as simply as I can.”

Can one define silence?

“For me, above all it is waiting. I wait for God to stimulate my thoughts sufficiently to renew me, to make me creative instead of being what St.Paul called a tinkling cymbal. It’s the cornerstone of my life. It is an attempt at seeing people and their problems from God’s point of view, insofar as that is possible.”