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Together as One

Together as One

By Maria Shriver
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I sat down to meditate the other morning. It was still dark outside, so I lit a candle next to my chair to provide some light, some warmth, and some company. Then I began.

The practice of sitting in silence, in meditation, or in prayer has been around since the dawn of civilization. But if I had to guess, I think it’s never been more needed than it is right now.

Our world is noisy. People are stressed out, angry, and scared. Our futures feel uncertain. American monk, mystic, and social activist Thomas Merton summed up this moment well in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander many years ago. He wrote:

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