From “What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman” by Lerita Coleman Brown
Howard Thurman also believed that quieting the mind prepares us for an encounter with God. Solitude reduces the chance that interruptions and distractions will interfere. In the silence, an ineffable experience may occur, or we might simply hear some badly needed advice. Stillness, which we often experience outside in nature, provides a calming force. “Be still and know that I am God,” the psalmist writes (Psalm 46:10). It is easier to connect with the presence of God or spiritual guidance when both inner and outer noises are minimized.
Arranging for the connection between regular meditation and encounters with God, Thurman writes, “Prayer is not only the participation in the communication with God in the encounter of religious experience, but is also the ‘readying’ of the spirit for such communication. It is the total process of quieting down and to that extent it must not be separated from meditation. Perhaps as important as prayer itself, is the ‘readying’ of the spirit for the experience.”