quiet... it is enough

In a recent biography of the late Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, there is an exquisite little passage about silence:

Teresa of Avila spoke about the prayer of quiet... (It is) a very beautiful word, quiet. It retains something of the physical. The whole body is in a state of silence, repose. Simply sitting down is sufficient and... being contented, without ideas, without thoughts, just simply being contented!... (this) gives the soul the profound sensation of tasting happiness and peace."
(Anne-Sophie Constant, Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man, p. 42)

In its earliest Old French (c. 1300 CE) quiet meant the absence of strife and freedom from conflict. As life changed, quiet came to describe what a body experienced after exertion: physical and emotional tranquility. That we have narrowed its meaning over the ages to speak only of silence - the absence of sound - suggests a monosyllabic parable to me.

These days I thirst for quiet: it seems to be the only prayer I can offer. I have no words for this moment - except for my centering prayer mantra by day - and a few dozen Hail Marys each night. The poet, W.S. Merwin, put it bittersweetly in his evocative,"Thanks."

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is


Henri Nouwen captured some of this season, too in this short rumination:

The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, he asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises. But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices. I remember seeing a film on the human misery and devastation brought by the bomb on Hiroshima. Among all the scenes of terror and despair emerged one image of a man quietly writing a word in calligraphy. All his attention was directed to writing that one word. That image made this gruesome film a hopeful film. Isn’t that what God is doing? Writing the divine word of hope in the midst of our dark world?

Into this darkness, I have only candles and quiet to bring to the table. And like the the lone voice crying in the wilderness of "In the Bleak Midwinter," it is enough.

Angels and Archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But only His Mother in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him, give my heart.credits:
+ https://hybridpedagogy.org/essential-silence/
+ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67905906853090702/