stillness

In the Quiet Solitude And Stillness

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“May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us” (Teresa of Ávila).

I love hiking the trails at Radnor Lake State Park. I love how I can travel less than 30 minutes from where I live and enter a completely different world where nature has full sway and the noises of civilization seem a million miles away.

Often I feel as though silence is the best kind of language for such a place. Words seem to profane such a sacred place, so I try to talk less and listen more.

I’m trying to be more attentive to my surroundings when I’m on one of the trails. I’m still not very good at taking in everything, but I’m learning more and more how to see rather than just look.

That’s the key to life. Sometimes, what you need is to be silent and still. You need to step away from the hurried rat-race and the voices telling you, “Faster! Faster! More! More!”

I think the best places to do that are the places that are closest to the original Garden of Eden, places with the least amount of man-made noise and pollution and the most nature.

Be still. Be quiet. And listen. Just as Elijah had to strain his ears to hear the still small voice of God, so we sometimes need to be silent and still to hear God speaking.

God is still speaking.

The Space Between the Words

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“The spirit lives in the space between the words. The danger in becoming too wordy is that we miss the space between the words” (Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day).

I often think about something I learned in one of my advertising classes at Union University. The key when you’re creating an ad is not to cram in as many words and images as possible onto a flyer or a brochure. People would be overwhelmed by all the information hitting them all at once, and thus be highly unlikely to actually read the ad.

White space in an ad is extremely important in allowing the eye to rest and emphasizing the words and images.

Most of us live our lives at such a frenetic pace, trying to fill every possible space with words and activity and doing. No wonder so many of us feel like we’re running in place, exerting a great deal of energy but not really moving any place.

It’s vitally important to create margins in our lives. Those are the white spaces where we find rest. It’s also crucial to embrace silence and stillness not as enemies of our productivity but as allies in our quest to work and play smarter and not just harder.

How can any of us hear God speak if we leave no space between our words and our deeds? How can any of us grow into the grace of God apart from margins and boundaries?

No one naturally gravitates toward silence and stillness. Most of us will, left to our own devices, trend toward the tyranny of the urgent instead of nurturing and caring for what is most important– our communion with our Maker.

“When all the sheep have been gathered, [The Good Shepherd] walks on ahead of them; and they follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4, The Voice).

Letting Go of Our Fear of God

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“We are afraid of emptiness. Spinoza speaks about our ‘horror vacui,’ our horrendous fear of vacancy. We like to occupy-fill up-every empty time and space. We want to be occupied. And if we are not occupied we easily become preoccupied; that is, we fill the empty spaces before we have even reached them. We fill them with our worries, saying, ‘But what if …’

It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen. It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. God wants to dwell in our emptiness. But as long as we are afraid of God and God’s actions in our lives, it is unlikely that we will offer our emptiness to God. Let’s pray that we can let go of our fear of God and embrace God as the source of all love” (Henri Nouwen).

It’s one thing to be in awe of God and quite another to be afraid of Him and what He wants to do in your life. It’s one thing to be lazy and quite another to have margins in your schedule where you can be silent and still for long enough to see and hear God.

I am witness to so many who are so afraid of emptiness and silence that they run themselves ragged trying to fill every moment and every void with activity and noise. We need some silence for our mental well-being. We need down time and rest for our own sanity.

Many of the men and women of faith that we look up to prized that silence and stillness to the degree that they made it a priority in their lives and put aside noble and worthy activities to sit at the feet of Jesus.

My hope and prayer through the remainder this season of Lent is that I will learn to fill up the void of social media with a holy emptiness where God has room to come in and fill all the spaces and speak in all the silences.

 

Radner Lake and Henry David Thoreau

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image When was the last time you paused and stood absolutely still and silent for one minute? When was the last time you went to a place of solitude and did nothing more than listen to the quiet? I walked my favorite trail at Radnor Lake State Park again today. Even after so many times, it still feels like I’m leaving Middle Tennessee for Middle Earth. I feel like I could be Frodo Baggins out for a hike in the Shire. image When I stood still, I could hear nature all around me. Leaves rustling, birds singing, wind humming. Even myself thinking. I think God speaks loudest to me in the quiet. When I’m still and my brain isn’t racing with 9,956 tabs open at the same time. Like He did with Elijah, God often chooses to speak through a still, small voice that won’t compete with all the noise and clamor around us. image I can hear that Voice when I’m at Radnor Lake and when I’m sitting in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church or when I’m laying in bed late at night. I confess I’m still not very good at listening. I’m still too impatient and easily distracted. If I try to be still, immediately I think of something I need to do or a note I need to write. Complete stillness is so unnatural for me. For all of us.

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I need to get out more. And by out, I mean to these quiet places with no flashing neon lights or constant noise. Sometimes I think I could be like Mr. Thoreau and find myself a Walden Pond to visit for a while. Yeah, that’d be nice.

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Cold Rainy Monday Nights

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I don’t mind the rain. I don’t even mind cold and rainy nights. As long as I’m looking at the rain through a well-insulated window from inside.

Actually, I don’t even mind driving in the rain as long as it’s not dark outside. But that’s what I found myself doing tonight when I took my paycheck to my bank’s ATM on a dark, rainy Monday night. At least it was a short drive.

There’s something very peaceful about listening to rain hitting the windows and the roof. Especially if you have one of those antiquated tin roofs. It’s one of my favorite calming sounds.

It helps me to be still and be quiet. It helps calm my anxious thoughts (if I have any) and not be so prone to thinking ahead to the next day or the next week. I think I even pray better when I hear the rain outside.

I know I need to make time for those moments of doing nothing but being intentionally still and quiet and ready to hear God’s voice. It doesn’t have to be all day or even for an hour. It can be fifteen minutes where I don’t have any televisions or radios or iPhones to distract me from what God might be wanting to tell me.

Maybe we can encourage each other to cultivate those quiet moments during the day. I think it would make a huge difference toward getting my mind back toward spiritual things and my eyes refocused on Jesus.

So those are my thoughts on this wet cold Monday evening.