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The unhurried silence of God, walkingSunday, May 7, 2017
Psalm 23 In the silence over the sea
"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters." - Scott Peck, from The Road Less Traveled Scott Peck's famous paradox about life's "difficulty" resolves ... slowly. The trick is, there is no hurry about any of this. In fact, when I hurry I lose myself, I lose sight of God, I lose my way. Buddhism's Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Noble Path might be summed up: there is no hurry. In Matthew 6 Jesus cautions us not to worry. Let life come to us. There is no hurry. Today's lectionary text from 1 Peter, about our call to suffering and following the example of Jesus, is realized slowly. There is no hurry. Don't just do something. Stand there. In my "slow takes time" unhurried life, I also do not much need to speak. There is, instead, the slowly emerging sound of silence, what the Japanese call "ma," defined as "pause" or "space between two parts." Silence ... framed by sound. Jesus did not awaken his disciples when he prayed to Abba early in the morning. They slept on. In John 8, Jesus said almost nothing amid the cannibalistic mutterings of those vicious elders wanting to stone the prostitute. In John 11 he was mostly silent on his oh-so-slow way to visit Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus. In John 19, he was famously silent on his day of accusation and death. Flannery O'Connor evoked the silences between "parts." In her short story "The River," a sullen, thoughtless boy discovers the silence underwater during his baptism and later drowns when he seeks it out again, alone. Her characters stumble between arrogance and humility, saying too much and thinking too little until suddenly, caught in a rush of the Spirit, they are flushed from their old wordy worlds into something new. When Flannery's story stops, when her words are done, the sudden silence bellows and blows me from side to side. I reel in that emptiness of echoed words. For me, it's almost perfect. Jesus spoke and preached and laughed and cried, but Jesus also lived in rich silence, hour after hour, day after day. And, you know, when Jesus spoke ... people listened. He had something to say. Think of the shepherd. The Lord. He makes me lie down. He leads me. He restores me. He is with me. He comforts me. He prepares a table for me. He anoints my head with oil. Perhaps it is only then, after all that ordinary time, that my shepherd speaks. He turns with a smile meant for me, and invites me into his home. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Maybe I could live without the sounds of the world, Lord, but I'm sure I cannot live without your silence. That surprises me, Father, that in all my words and all my music and all my SOUND your silence is much more precious. I hear it when the moon rises. I hear it when I fall asleep. I hear it in the space between all those sounds of the day. Your silence takes me inside myself to where we can be ... together. |
