don't speak unless you can improve upon the silence...

OMG is it quiet here! One of the many things I miss about living in the desert Southwest is access to silence. Within 10 minutes of our old home in Tucson, you could be walking among the majestic Saguaro cacti - mesquite trees, kerosote and prickly pears, too - and hear nothing save the sound of your own feet on the rocks. There might be a few random animals scurrying for cover and once in awhile a stray planes engines, too. But with the exception of another hiker, it was stone cold silent. Oh what a healing gift - especially given the frenzy of Black Friday in the USA - so I'm rejoicing as I experience that blessing once again in this quiet section of Quebec's Eastern Townships. Mary Oliver once wrote:

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”

I'm not the first to lament the chaos and clutter that clogs our culture and keeps us from hearing that still speaking voice coming to us from within the stillness - and I won't be the last. The song leader and poet of ancient Israel prayed: "Be still - and know" in the Psalms My mentor and living connection to the holy, Jesus, regularly set aside the demands of his time for a night of silence under the stars. And Parker Palmer, wise elder of the 21st century, wrote that "we shouldn't speak unless it can improve upon the silence." So, I stood for a sacred moment last night in the pitch black night and soaked up the silence. It was yet another feast on Thanksgiving.

Some seven years ago, while struggling with my sense that I was being called out of pastoral ministry, Di and I were walking through another woods in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Being in the woods - or sitting by an unexpected forest stream - always shuts my mouth and lowers my blood pressure. On this day, we happened upon three different carvings of Green Men - the Celtic incarnation of wild nature - on three different tree stumps. It was, I felt, an invitation to let go of what I knew for certain and trust that something even better would be revealed if I kept wandering. Mary Oliver, once again, evokes something of this revelation when she wrote:   

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

Thankfully we DID stay long enough to greet the Green Men (but not the dancers with legs of goats) as well as a few surprise forest streams. By the end of that hike it was clear: the holy was silently whispering to me to trust a new way of being. My resignation soon followed. I had no clear understanding of what was to come next except the assurance that the quiet wasn't lying. Be still - and know. Seven years later, a small ministry of presence is taking shape. A small group of musical comrades, too. And an ever-deeping connection with the community of L'Arche Ottawa.