Thursday, September 1, 2022
Be still and listen
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who may stand in his holy place?
As the rain pours down outside in the dark, all is quiet inside our apartment. Not really quiet, I guess, there is the freezer which bubbles all day long, and the sound of the refrigerator, and the air conditioner going on and off. There is the ringing in my own ears. I think that’s called tinnitus.
But while I sit and write, finishing supper, Margaret is asleep and I am sleepy. The TV is off, my audiobooks are off, and the sounds of silence are not interrupted by human voices.
I think that’s what I mean by quiet.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty died in 1985. She was a Russian noblewoman who eventually gave up everything to follow Jesus. She often experienced God’s presence in silence.
True silence is the speech of lovers. True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God. It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved.
Catherine, clearly, was a poet as well as mystic. She was in love with Jesus, and in love with life. She experienced that love more in silence than sound.
The Lord’s are the earth and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.
And although traveling the outer limits of the world can be a solitary joy, it is not necessary.
Deserts, silence, solitudes are not necessarily places but states of mind and heart. These deserts can be found in the midst of the city, and in the everyday of our lives. We need only to look for them and realize our tremendous need for them.
While Margaret was at a class this afternoon across the street at Grace Covenant, our church, Jasper and I slept. When we woke up, we laid in the bed, silent, for awhile. He became a little restless, and then settled down again. I became a little restless. Neither of us said a word. We were very quiet, waiting to see who would talk first.
Catherine has an ideas about this.
But how, really, can one achieve solitude? By standing still! Stand still, and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away. That restlessness was once considered the magic carpet to tomorrow, but now we see it for what it really is: a running away from oneself, a turning from the journey inward that all of us must undertake to meet God dwelling within the depth of their souls.
I need not search for this quiet mind; it’s there waiting for me. And it’s waiting for every one of God’s children, made to listen more than speak, made to hear the sounds of the Spirit, the wind, and follow.
This simple, prayerful silence can and should be everybody’s silence. It belongs to every Christian who loves God, to everyone whose soul has risen in search of truth, in search of God. And it will break forth in a charity that overflows in the service of neighbor without counting the cost. Hospitality will be deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart, and a loving heart is a hospice to the world.
 (1 Corinthians 3, Psalm 24, Matthew 4, Luke 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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