"silence...."

"Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping,
left its seeds while I was sleeping..."

I think the first verse of Simon & Garfinkel's "Sounds of Silence," says it all for me today. 

Mother Teresa once wrote:

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. "

Whether this is a Truth, or just true for her...I do not know.  But something about it calls to me.  It's an inviation that I can't ignore.  It seems like a living, pulsing something asking for space in my life. I glimpsed its promise this summer, when...quite serendipitously...I had some time to just sit with myself. And what did I do with it?

Well, I ended up finding that I couldn't seem to silence the "self" that always wants to record it all in my journal, try to immediately make sense of what I was "hearing," and then search for the words to make it "make sense" for others.  In doing so, something was "lost in translation."  Besides which, I seemed to lose the true chord each time I tried to give it a name, a form, or put the substance of its message into words.

And in the midst of it all, I kept coming back to something I have long-loved, but have always been too busy trying to "find words" to explain it to others, to let its message move in, unpack, and take up real residency in my own hungry heart. Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has come to this age through a "still, small voice," through silent utterances and divine annointing which quicken and increase the beneficial effects of Christianity.  I long to see the conssumation of my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments in this line of light."

I want to understand this...more than I can say.

There is a seed of something growing in my heart...I don't know what its voice will sound like...or if it will even have a voice that reaches beyond the silence.  But I want to sit with it, and let it take whatever shape God wants it to take.   I don't know if its song will have lyrics...but I know I have to listen. 

This time, I dare not...

"...disturb the sound of silence...."

with Love,

Kate

"beyond the chains of thinking..."

"Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again...."

Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" speaks to me of a gentle darkness, a sweet emptiness, a delicate inner "void" I have learned to love, and am no longer unsettled by.  It is speechless.  And sometimes this silent voice of God comes so softly, almost imperceptibly, that I can really only feel Her touch if I am perfectly still, like a deer in the forest listening for the moccasined footsteps of an Indian princess as she tiptoes her scent through the fallen leaves. When this divine whisper brushes against my heart, it is not in words, but in feelings so tender that I find my eyes closing, unintentionally.  It is a moment of reverence so pure it takes my breath away.  And with this intake of breath, there is a shift in focus, my inner landscape takes on new dimensions, and what was once close becomes distant, while what was distant, draws infinitely near.  It is a touch that penetrates to the core place where there is neither time nor process, failure or accomplishment,  you or me.  It is beyond the chains of thinking...beyond reason.

What does freedom
look like
when you are
no longer
bound to
your
once-upon-a-time
beliefs
about
your life,
the
worn-out cliches
of someone else's story
about you,
the
fairy tale dreams
you recited
to yourself
...like mantras...
from beneath the covers,
long into the
darkness,
when
the world
was fast
asleep...

Can we ever...
is it possible
for us... 
to walk
beyond the
chains of
thinking,
wondering,
worrying,
if we might
just
be
the
product of
our own
worst
choices,
or
worse yet,
our own
best
thinking...

You are not
the outcome,
the offspring,
the effect
of
someone,
anyone
else's
rejection, neglect
abuse
abandonment...
or even,
their
love

you are
the breath of
Spirit
upon
an aspen leaf,
a drop of
holy water
on the tongue of
a saint,
the whisper of
forgiveness,
the sweetest song
to a mother
who
never meant
to
cause her
child's
tears

true
freedom
is to live
without want,
without
need,
without 
feeling
the dull ache
of thinking
there
might just be
something more...


it is
to
live
fully
within the
space of
having all,
in the
Allness
of
our
singular
relationship with Him.

it is
to be at peace
to be at home
to find heaven
in
a
closet,
a sepulchre,
a cell,
a cocoon,
a prayer....

In this space of spiritual surrender we discover that, as Sara Groves' assures us "It's Gonna Be Alright" And I believe...I really, truly, genuinely believe it is. In fact, I know it is.

""And when some time has past us,
and the story is retold
It will mirror the strength
and the courage in your soul
Oh, oh, I believe I believe,
that it's going to be alright...""

Especially when we have the courage to cast our cares on Him...for he careth for us...

for you...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"The sound of silence..."

"Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence…."
- Paul Simon

Have you ever spent days in a cocoon of self-imposed silence waiting for a message from God.  I have.  I have wrapped myself in quilts and spoken as little as was humanly possible as a wife, mother, healer, friend, and neighbor.  I have silenced human reasoning….you know, the lists of pros and cons, the "if this, then that", A + B = C thinking that circles back and leaves you standing there looking at the tail end of your first premise…and let's face it nothing really looks all that great from the tail end.

I have held my tongue, held my opinions, held my peace…I have waited for the moving of the waters, the winds of change, the parting of the sea.  And just when I think I can't wait for one more second to hear God's answer to my prayer for direction, comfort, guidance, inspiration….it occurs to me that what I most needed was to know something about my relationship with God.  And what I discovered in this self-imposed "silence" was my love for His voice.  And His voice…was the silence.

For me, God's voice is often the silence that actually turns a cacophony of sound into a symphony.  A friend once referred to it as "orchestrated silences". Those carefully placed silences amongst a litany of notes that turns sounds into music. 

If you can, imagine an orchestra on stage playing Beethoven's 5th symphony, not every instrument is playing at all times.  If they were all playing at once, that would sound like…well, noise.  But it is the silences, that are built into the symphony, that create the beauty of the music.  The composer is carving out silences as much as he or she is placing notes.  And those silences aren't idle.  The cellist who only has four bars of bowing during the entire second movement doesn't get to take a nap.  She is as actively engaged in that movement as the violinist.  She is marking the music…watching each note. Waiting for the moment when she is to pull her bow across the strings.  Her silence is as much a part of the beauty of the performance as the flute's lilting solo. 

I have learned something about myself, and my relationship to God - the great Conductor, during these silences.  I have discovered that I am not afraid of not knowing everything, of not having an answer, of not being self-certain…because I am God-certain.  I have learned that I  am God's child.  By this I mean that I have come to realize that like a child, I don't need to know  how something is going to work out, or when, because I so trust my Parent's love for me and His/Her ability to take care of me that I am at peace with just knowing that my Parent knows...it is enough.  I've learned this…in the sound of silence.

Mary Baker Eddy has this to say about silence in her primary work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has
come to this age through a "still, small voice,"
through silent utterances and divine anointing
which quicken and increase the beneficial effects
of Christianity.  I long to see the consummation of
my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments
in this line of light."

For me this "consummation of her hope" is a sacred goal…to speak less and let the sound of silence…the voice of God felt in the heart of man - that inbreaking song of grace…reach where human tongue has no voice.  Nothing can compare to this feeling of sublime surrender to our divine Parent's governance and wisdom.  Nothing can replace that feeling of resting in our Father-Mother's encircling arms…in the space of a silence so sweet - so full of trust - that no words are needed.

Kate