“We are built for contemplation. This book is about cultivating the skills necessary for this subtlest, simplest, and most searching of the spiritual arts. Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron’s capacity to flower…”

Laird, Martin. Into the Silent Land : a Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 1.