For some time now, I have entered quiet times. I could call them simply ‘silence’ but I am no expert in silence, an apprentice at best, a dilettante too often. I write this as I am facing one of my favorite places: the Atlantic Ocean and the vast expanse of the sky facing our patio in viejo San Juan. I have spent many happy hours here staring at my sisters the waves and and my brothers the clouds.
How can I talk of quiet times when in fact these are busy days when I can neither linger nor lounge the way I like to? Because my busyness comes wrapped in layers of inner silence, a silence in which I revel. By day and by night.
I have already written about this feeling of being called to silence. Well, this call seems to come ever stronger.
The silence of my blog is due more to my busyness than to silence itself. I have accepted the reality that, at this time, I usually do not have enough space in the day to be with my family, study the French highway code (quite a challenge), prepare for a retreat in Barranquitas, and spend time writing a blog.
Also, I am aware that in two months from now I will have started a thirty day retreat and will find myself unable to blog for a while. If I add my quiet times, the silence forever enticing me more, and the prospect of thirty days in Manresa, all my being truly wants to do, when it finds a quiet moment, is to sit and soak in the world around me.
It is a bit as if I were sitting in the palm of Godde’s hands, absorbing the warmth and love of Her presence, as She is watching me…
It does not mean that I don’t react to what I hear or read. I am still as judgmental and opinionated as before. The silence either muffles my reactions or makes them feel rather unimportant considering the well-being I am experiencing in the depth of my being.
Maybe I am just growing mellow in my old age. Maybe what really counts is the authenticity of love I encounter around me, among my family and friends, with simultaneously becoming aware of wanting to open my heart to the whole world in a quiet sort of way… Maybe it’s just the silence before a change, the gestation before a new birth…
Some of the books I have recently been reading:
Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
Robert Sardello’s Silence, The Mystery of Wholeness
Franz Jalics SJ’s The Contemplative Way: Quietly Savoring God’s Presence
Richard Rohr’s Silent Compassion, Finding God in Contemplation
Photo: A Patio with a View
Beautiful thoughts Claire. Thank you for sharing the reflection and the resources.
Peace,
W. Ockham
Thank you. You are welcome 🙂
Thank you, Claire, for your beautiful reflection. I can so relate to the call to silence. Being introduced to Centering Prayer some years ago was an incredible gift.
By the way, I love Richard Rohr’s work. I attended The Inner Room Conference in Albuequerque at which he and Thomas Keating facilitated a few years ago. What a great experience.
Yes, Centering Prayer is a gift that keeps giving…
How wonderful that you could attend a conference with both Richard Rohr and Thomas Keating. What an experience it must have been!
It feels good to be back here at your blog after I’ve been “away” so long. And I have missed that shimmering silence that you do seem to carry within you so.
I’m a bit sad to know that you will be gone for a while, since I just returned to the world of blogging, but I’m happy for your opportunity to retreat.
Should I ask why you’re studying the French highway code, or is that a subject best left untouched?
So The Pollinatrix is back! This is good news!
I don’t expect I will be gone for long. I just ebb and flow…
As for the French thingy, I will need it to drive. That could be a blog in itself — when I can laugh about it 🙂
So glad you’re back!
Thank you, Claire! Very encouraging, somehow, and just the right thing to read at the right time, for me. You and I are going through a similar season, I feel, in some ways.
I love the Richard Rohr books you’ve mentioned – very much part of my own inner landscape, Rohr. The other two I don’t know at all. Have to look them up.
Don’t envy you the French highway code! I found driving in France as scary as driving in the US was relaxing. Long American road trips make me understand why they’re such a part of the mythos – where you’re going is secondary. But France just frightened me; I simply wanted to get where I was going so I could stop 😉
Yes, Mike, we seem to be going through a similar season.
Robert Sardello’s book is highly recommended in RRohr’s Immortal Diamond. Franz Jalics is a Hungarian Jesuit, who lived in Argentina and ended up with two others Jesuits working in slums, where he was captured and kept bound and blind-folded for five months. He is now running a retreat centre in Germany.
I like the way you look at driving in the US. Yes, long road trips are something. Driving in France is OK. The Code at this time IS scary 🙂
Claire, I can also relate to your growing attraction to silence. I find that in myself as well at different times. For you, at the moment, I believe the Lord is drawing you into silence as a preparation for the 30 Day Retreat. That preparation is vital to the time of intense silence when there will be only you and God. As always, prayers for you.
You may well be right, Lynda, that the Lord is drawing me into silence as a preparation for the 30 Day Retreat… I’m so very much looking forward to it.
In prayers with you, Lynda. Thank you.
A lovely piece of writing Claire ! Silence is wonderful and the waves and clouds such inspiration ! Much love, Patricia
Thank you, Patricia. xoxo