Sanctuary Sun, 19th January, 2014
My favorite poem in the whole world is also one of the simplest:
"Best of any song is birdsong in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet." —Wendell Berry
Lately I've been rediscovering the joy of silence. How much of my life has been spent with my mind and spirit numbed by constant stimulation? In recent years, my love of news and music usually meant that the radio was a constant accompaniment to so many mornings and evenings. It was almost as if I was afraid to be alone with my thoughts, so I somehow made sure there were no empty spaces in which I would have to face them.
About a year ago I decided to silence the constant drone of news and talk, and Betsy agreed to give this a try (she was an NPR addict, too). It's amazing what we discovered in the silence. It made a space for us to reflect, and with the opportunity for reflection came thoughts and feelings, both profound and mundane, that we could share or perhaps tuck away for another time.
This idea, in fact, is a primary tenet of Native American spirituality: to settle yourself quietly in nature and open yourself to receive messages. It's not a prayer you pray to get something—it's a prayer that comes to find you. As Erik Wikstrom writes in his book Simply Pray, the quiet creates a space for us to hear the prayer that God is already praying inside of us.
So in this sense, there's really no such thing as silence. The moment you think you've achieved it, you can then hear something quieter, such as nearby birdsong or rustling of leaves in the breeze or the cat hopping off the bed upstairs. In the ultimate silence, you can hear your own breath and even, very faintly, the whisper of your own beating heart. You simply move to another level of consciousness but there's always something there to discover.
And that's why for me the quiet is the ultimate sanctuary. It is, of course, a refuge from the constant drone of life's busy-ness that we all need. But its power comes not from the mere absence of noise. It comes from what rises up in that quiet place: the message that all this time has been quietly tugging at your sleeve. Those quiet words that your heart so urgently needs to hear. The truth that's been waiting to have a word with you.
Are you listening?
My favorite poem in the whole world is also one of the simplest:
"Best of any song is birdsong in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet." —Wendell Berry
Lately I've been rediscovering the joy of silence. How much of my life has been spent with my mind and spirit numbed by constant stimulation? In recent years, my love of news and music usually meant that the radio was a constant accompaniment to so many mornings and evenings. It was almost as if I was afraid to be alone with my thoughts, so I somehow made sure there were no empty spaces in which I would have to face them.
About a year ago I decided to silence the constant drone of news and talk, and Betsy agreed to give this a try (she was an NPR addict, too). It's amazing what we discovered in the silence. It made a space for us to reflect, and with the opportunity for reflection came thoughts and feelings, both profound and mundane, that we could share or perhaps tuck away for another time.
This idea, in fact, is a primary tenet of Native American spirituality: to settle yourself quietly in nature and open yourself to receive messages. It's not a prayer you pray to get something—it's a prayer that comes to find you. As Erik Wikstrom writes in his book Simply Pray, the quiet creates a space for us to hear the prayer that God is already praying inside of us.
So in this sense, there's really no such thing as silence. The moment you think you've achieved it, you can then hear something quieter, such as nearby birdsong or rustling of leaves in the breeze or the cat hopping off the bed upstairs. In the ultimate silence, you can hear your own breath and even, very faintly, the whisper of your own beating heart. You simply move to another level of consciousness but there's always something there to discover.
And that's why for me the quiet is the ultimate sanctuary. It is, of course, a refuge from the constant drone of life's busy-ness that we all need. But its power comes not from the mere absence of noise. It comes from what rises up in that quiet place: the message that all this time has been quietly tugging at your sleeve. Those quiet words that your heart so urgently needs to hear. The truth that's been waiting to have a word with you.
Are you listening?
