Tag Archives: silence

I am surrounded by Your heralds.

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“Your birds awaken me in the morning, and the murmur of the lake lulls me to sleep in the evening. But it is not the birds that awaken me, nor the lake that lulls me to sleep, but You, O Lord, Master of the voice.

“You lend Your voice to the birds and the midnight murmur to the lake. You have lent a voice to every throat, and have put a story into every creature. I am surrounded by Your heralds, as a student by many teachers, and I listen to them tirelessly from dawn to dusk.

“O Lord, Master of the voice, speak more clearly through your heralds!

“The sun speaks to me about the radiance of Your countenance, and the stars about the harmony of Your being. The sun speaks in one language, and the stars speak in a different language, but all the languages flow out of the same vocal cords. The vocal cords belong to You, and You uttered the first sound that began to tremble in the deafness and formlessness of nothingness, and it broke into countless sounds and heralds, as a thundercloud breaks into rain drops….”

-St. Nikolai Velimirovich, from XXVII, Prayers by the Lake

I am pondering St. Nikolai’s plea, that the Lord speak more clearly… If we can’t understand, isn’t the problem that we are hard of hearing? But maybe it is his way of saying, “I am straining the ears of my heart, Lord, to know You better.”

When I found this particular prayer yesterday, it resonated with my own experience here in the mountains, where so much of my attention is focused on the birds, the clouds, and yes, the stars. After a thunderstorm one evening, I went out and found the sky full of them, declaring the glory of God, in their voices that are deep silence.

One afternoon when I sat on the deck reading, the silence caught my attention. At home in the suburbs, I have learned not to pay attention to all the neighborhood noises, and the freeway sounds that come on the wind from a mile away. Some hours are quieter than others, but if I listen closely, there is always the ticking of a clock, or the cars in the street. When I noticed that forest silence that my ears are not used to, I concentrated hard, to discover what might be in it. And all that I could take in was the pine boughs moving in the breeze.

This poem from St. Nikolai’s collection is not really about the voice of God in silence. He goes on past what I quoted to talk about words and stories. It has truly been lovely for me to be slowed down by having fewer matters to attend to; to tune in to the “stories,” as it were, in the activities of the animals here, and to study a few plants. I saw another new-to-me plant not far from lakeside, called an American Parsley Fern:

I could watch the animals all day, I think, from my first-rate viewing perch. Chickadees are plentiful, and a junco made an appearance. I’m thankful that my sister suggested that I bring up some food that the chipmunks would like. This morning two chipmunks came to the slider and ran up and down, peering in with their paws against the glass. Do they know that the seeds come from the other side?

What I have been putting out for them is a mix of seeds and peanuts, and now a gang of Steller’s Jays have come for a share. As many as four at a time were interested.

They are truly handsome birds, with their shiny royal blue feathers. Of course they are greedy, and don’t have pretty voices, but they belong to this place, as it belongs to them. I’m happy that our stories overlapped for a short time, and wouldn’t mind if they did wake me in the mornings — but when I wake everything is still very quiet, and the sky that’s visible between the trees outside my window is turning from gray to pale blue.

The words that come out of silence.

poetry, writing, , ,

HOW TO BE A POET

(to remind myself)

I 
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

II
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

III
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

-Wendell Berry

The supreme moment of hospitality.

church, history, time, , , , , , , , ,

Because when I recently rediscovered this post from three years ago, I was nourished by it again, I am re-posting it for my new readers and for all of us. It concerns the most enduring things, never outdated. One of those always-new things, which I’ve only this year begun to read and think about in the context of the Annunciation, is hospitality of the sort that the Virgin demonstrated toward the very Son of God. She is an example for us all.

Today is the beginning of our salvation;
the revelation of the eternal Mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
“Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!”

I had wanted to continue my ruminations on The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air by further considering The Moment that Søren Kierkegaard refers to when, after waiting in silence, “…the silent lily understands that now is the moment, and makes use of it.”

I don’t know what that moment consists of for you, for me, for us as a world community, or in our cities or church communities or families. No doubt there are overlapping times and seasons containing infinite instants, and only by quiet listening can we make any sense of them. But this passage in particular I wanted to pass on, in which the writer discusses what is missed when we fail to make the proper, standing-before-God kind of preparation:

“Even though it is pregnant with rich significance, the moment does not send forth any herald in advance to announce its arrival; it comes too swiftly for that; indeed, there is not a moment’s time beforehand…. But of course everything depends upon “the moment.” And this is surely the misfortune in the lives of many, of far the greater part of humanity: that they never perceived ‘the moment,’ that in their lives the eternal and the temporal were exclusively separated.”

So many thoughts swirl in my own noisy mind and heart that I could not imagine how I might find a way to share even these few gleanings with you. Then, in God’s providence and the church calendar, appeared someone who is the supreme example for us of being ready for the moment, that time in history and that time in her life, in a particular moment of a day, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her. Today we remember that event, when Mary listened, and responded, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

The Word became flesh and came to live with us, taking on all our human experience, its weakness and suffering and  death. He defeated death, and opened the gates of Paradise. The Incarnation, the beginning of our salvation, is The Moment of history; our own “Yes” to God, echoing Mary’s willingness, can be the essence of our every prayer as well, as we wait on Him.

Kierkegaard exhorts us, in words that seem especially fitting for this time of uncertainty and change: “Would that in the silence you might forget yourself, forget what you yourself are called, your own name, the famous name, the lowly name, the insignificant name, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Hallowed be your name!’ Would that in silence you might forget yourself, your plans, the great, all-encompassing plans, or the limited plans concerning your life and its future, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your kingdom come!’ Would that you might in silence forget your will, your willfulness, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your will be done.’“

We know that God’s will for us is good, now as ever. Our inability to see or understand that is due to our weakness or sin, or His hiding of His works. May He give us grace to wait and to pray, and eventually we will see the full salvation of the LORD.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11