An invitation…..
Mark 6:30-31
The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat.
The words silence, solitude, and stillness are not complicated. Silence, a time or place of quiet or calm. Solitude, a place of separation and aloneness. Finally, there is stillness, a place of repose, and restlessness. They describe places that are inviting and call out to us in the noise and chaos of the tumbling hours of our days.
This view, however, is overly simplistic. Each word is multidimensional and within the span of the meaning of each there lies contradiction. Silence is a privileged choice or it is toxic wounding. We can choose silence or we can be silenced, one is holy and the other poisonous to us.
Solitude can be something different than a place of comfort, it can be a choice like a walk in along a wooded path or sitting on hillside offering a wide panorama of a wild place. It can also be an unchosen place of loneliness and isolation.
We wish to embrace stillness as a sanctuary of placidness and calm. Stillness is also a word for lifelessness, or it can describe when we are becalmed by a failed evening breeze and we can't reach our desperately sought destination.
There is another perspective as well. We talk of inner silence, solitude, and stillness but more often we think of external places of these things where there is no noise, no crowds, or agitation.
In reality, places of total silence, solitude, and stillness are hard to find and if we find them we experience them as emptiness rather than fullness of spirit. When we speak of Silence what we actually speak of is a place free from irritation and distraction rather than being a vacuum empty of sound that exists in the vastness of space. When I seek silence what I am really looking for is a place to ignore interruptions and distractions. A place of silence for me could be standing knee-deep in rushing water that is so noisy I can't hear the sound of cars passing by on a nearby roadway or it might be when I focus on the sounds of the wind and birds and let the distractions of a barking dog not pull me away from the quiet.
As I am editing and honing this reflection, my son and daughter in law are banging things and running power tools while laying flooring in our new home. It is far from silent and yet I can let my own words pull me away from the present moment to where the sounds of nature, a breeze in the cottonwood trees, a lone Canadian Goose sailing overhead unseen against the darkened sky but clearly heard anyway.
Solitude is not about being alone but is more about finding a place of complacency in the presence of others. It is being able to tune out the cacophony whether it is my wife doing dishes or my neighbor trimming the hedge. To be in solitude is to be alone with your private thoughts while the hubbub of others goes on and on around you.
Finally, stillness. To find stillness is the hardest thing of all for me because it requires me to calm myself, to find a patient, measured breathing rhythm that will allow me to literally to will my heart rate to slow so I can focus in on one thing rather than a kaleidoscope fractured images and issues.
It is easy to understand the inner place of quiet of calm is most easily accessible in places of quiet, separation and peace but Meister Eckert states it is important we be able to access the quietest of places in the noisiest of times because that is when we need refuge most.
Over the past few months, I have made a practice of attempting to sink into contemplation in the most unlikely of places. In the waiting room of my dentist or doctor. Sitting at a railroad crossing waiting for a slowly rolling train ease to a stop and then painfully begin backing the other direction. Recently it has been a challenge to back away from the falls while standing in line at a home improvement store. While I have improved, the turmoil and upside-down nature of the world over the past 10 weeks has caused me to let go of some my good habits and slide back into some less fruitful ones that I had previously pushed away.
There is too much here to cover in just one reflection. It will take some time to cover each of the three characteristics and it important that while we are looking Celtic Spiritual practices, we are all about tying the practices to our Catholic and Christian faith. We are not pagans meditating and contemplating a non-responsive void, we are Christians who believe in a revealed God, a resurrected savior, and an ever-present, ever-loving Holy Spirit. The practices lead us into a relationship that is constantly nourished and sustained by our faith in his response to our prayer.
Let's begin with this thought from Meister Eckhart, "There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence." We are called to become more like God, to emulate the father in the prodigal son. To be the good shepherd to the family and friends that surround us. We can't become like those things until we are first silent so we can hear him as his words echo softly in the deepest corners of our being.
In another sermon the good Meister wrote "Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness." At first, I thought he was saying the same thing about stillness as he did silence but there is a difference. During the first 6 days, God created all there was to create but it was not until the 7th day that he paused, reflected and celebrated the work of the first 6 days. Created in his image, we can most closely seek to be like him when we choose the quiet.
The summary of Eckhart is that to enter into silence, solitude and stillness is the only way we can offer ourselves to the presence of God and be present in God. Turn off the music and TV. Put down the magazines and books. Sit quietly and turn away from distractions and other things around you. Breath in and out slowly. Be still. God fills the voids and rewards us with what he chooses based upon on what we need most whether or not we know it.
Let's close with this short quote from my hero John O'Donohue, "To return back into ourselves, there are three things needed, for which you don't require a computer, television or radio: the first is a bit of stillness. Nothing can happen without a certain stillness. We also need silence. There is nothing so vocal and articulate as silence; all good language, all great words, are born of it. And the third thing we need is solitude. We need to acknowledge that solitude is an invitation to the soul to come alive. Solitude is utterly luminous if we lose our fears and begin to enter it more deeply."
