...we've settled into the Eastern Township of Quebec village of Mansonville for 10 days of relative silence and solitude. The contrast couldn't be more profound.
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Our time away at the end of the summer has become a regular reset for me: this year, as the month started, I began savoring a "pray the hours" resource focusing on the insights of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin. Tomorrow, I'll supplement that with a quiet centering prayer and the daily liturgy of the Community of Northumbria.
Sitting in the darkness last night, it became clear that our current retreat center is absolutely silent - every bit as quiet as the Sonoran Desert House of Prayer that I used to visit - with the added bonus of autumn's early colors breaking open. I know all too well that when I abandon nourishing my inner life, I outwardly run out of gas. Staying connected to the source helps me push back when despair knocks and encourages me to let go of my all-too-shallow judgments. For unless I step away from the fray from time to time, I am devoured by it. Rumi's poem, "The Song of the Reed Flute," gets it so right.
Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
“Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it’s not given us
to see the soul. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty.”
Hear the love fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away. The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song. A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone. Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn’t want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it’s best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave.
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