Last January I Arrived in Guadalajara, Mexico— a lively, bustling city of four million inhabitants where city buses scream down the streets and mariachi music floats through the night air. Where silence is precious.
However, one night after teaching an English class, my friend Lourdes asked me if I would like to accompany her to a church of her faith across the street from the school. Toward the end of the service, she whispered to me that afterward she would like to pray. So I joined her as she knelt in the pew. I felt the door close on the world's busyness. I'd experienced this peace before during moments of prayer, when we pull the plug, so to speak, on the physical senses and mentally silence them so we can turn wholeheartedly to God and be in tune with the spiritual senses.
After a couple of minutes, I peeked at Lourdes, who was still motionless and deep in thought. After ten minutes, I became a little restless and, still kneeling, began shifting back and forth on the knee rest. As I closed my eyes again tried to enter what Mary Baker Eddy called our "closet" — ". . . the sanctuary of Spirit, the door of which shuts out sinful sense but lets in Truth, Life, and Love" (Science and Health, p. 15), I thought about the many activities I had done that day. And now, here I was, 15 minutes after the church service, itching to move on to something else.
