The Uncarved Stone

In the desert tradition, the abbas and ammas spoke of a monk who spent thirty years in solitary prayer. When a visitor finally sought him out, expecting radiant wisdom, the old monk simply washed the stranger's feet without a word. The visitor wept — not because of what the monk said, but because of what silence had carved away.

This is what Paul glimpses in Philippians 2:3-4: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." The apostle describes a kenosis of the ego, the same self-emptying that contemplative prayer enacts in us daily.

Thomas Merton understood this deeply. He wrote that humility is not thinking less of yourself — it is thinking of yourself less, because the false self has grown so quiet you can finally see the person standing before you. Centering prayer works like water on stone. You sit in silence, and God does not add anything. He removes. Layer by layer, the need to be noticed, the hunger to be right, the compulsion to be first — all of it slowly worn smooth.

Teresa of Avila called humility simply "walking in truth." When we descend into the prayer of quiet, we discover that truth: we are not the center. Christ is. And from that discovered center, we rise to wash feet we would never have noticed before.

Sit in silence this week. Let God uncarvе you. Then watch how differently you see the person across from you.