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The unhurried silence of God, walking
Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2017
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, and my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. – Psalm 23
In the silence over the sea
A fish jumped
The seaweed popped and the sand sighed
In the low tide …
While far off like a gentle song
The bell buoy rang its sea-slung gong
And a grasshopper whirred
And the night wind stirred
And the night fell down –
Not a sound. – Margaret Wise Brown, from her children’s book Quiet in the Wilderness
 “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” – Scott Peck, from The Road Less Traveled
 Scott Peck’s famous paradox about life’s “difficulty” resolves … slowly. The trick is, there is no hurry about any of this. In fact, when I hurry I lose myself, I lose sight of God, I lose my way.
Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Noble Path might be summed up: there is no hurry. In Matthew 6 Jesus cautions us not to worry. Let life come to us. There is no hurry.
Today’s lectionary text from 1 Peter, about our call to suffering and following the example of Jesus, is realized slowly. There is no hurry.
Don’t just do something. Stand there.
In my “slow takes time” unhurried life, I also do not much need to speak. There is, instead, the slowly emerging sound of silence, what the Japanese call “ma,” defined as “pause” or “space between two parts.” Silence … framed by sound.
Jesus did not awaken his disciples when he prayed to Abba early in the morning. They slept on. In John 8, Jesus said almost nothing amid the cannibalistic mutterings of those vicious elders wanting to stone the prostitute. In John 11 he was mostly silent on his oh-so-slow way to visit Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus. In John 19, he was famously silent on his day of accusation and death.
Flannery O’Connor evoked the silences between “parts.” In her short story “The River,” a sullen, thoughtless boy discovers the silence underwater during his baptism and later drowns when he seeks it out again, alone. Her characters stumble between arrogance and humility, saying too much and thinking too little until suddenly, caught in a rush of the Spirit, they are flushed from their old wordy worlds into something new.
When Flannery’s story stops, when her words are done, the sudden silence bellows and blows me from side to side. I reel in that emptiness of echoed words. For me, it’s almost perfect.
Jesus spoke and preached and laughed and cried, but Jesus also lived in rich silence, hour after hour, day after day. And, you know, when Jesus spoke … people listened. He had something to say.
Think of the shepherd. The Lord. He makes me lie down. He leads me. He restores me. He is with me. He comforts me. He prepares a table for me. He anoints my head with oil. Perhaps it is only then, after all that ordinary time, that my shepherd speaks. He turns with a smile meant for me, and invites me into his home. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Maybe I could live without the sounds of the world, Lord, but I’m sure I cannot live without your silence. That surprises me, Father, that in all my words and all my music and all my SOUND your silence is much more precious. I hear it when the moon rises. I hear it when I fall asleep. I hear it in the space between all those sounds of the day. Your silence takes me inside myself to where we can be … together.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2017/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1612
