‘And the lights are lit one by one outside the door of our Church, week by week. And we plunge more into the cold and the darkness. I wish I knew more about doing Teshuva [metanoia or penance]. It is the only thing that seems to make much sense in these days. And in the political dark I light small, frail lights about peace and hold them up in the whirlwind.’

Letter to Zalman Schachter, December 1961

‘Last night after a prayer vigil in the novitiate chapel, went to bed late at the hermitage. All quiet. Cold. Lay in bed realizing that what I was, was happy. Said the strange word ‘happiness’ and realized that it was there, not as an ‘it’ or an object. It simply was. And I was that. And this morning, coming down, seeing the multitude of stars above the bare branches of the wood, I was suddenly hit, as it were, with the whole package of meaning of everything: that the immense mercy of God was upon me, that the Lord in infinite kindness had looked down on me and given me this vocation of love …’

Dancing in the Water of Life December 1964