Soon silence will have passed into legend.
Man has turned his back on silence.
Day after day he invents machines and devices
that increase noise and distract humanity
from the essence of life. . .
~Jean Arp, French sculptor, painter, and poet
We see patterns of stillness and silence in the natural world. Day gives way to night, fruitfulness gives way to fallowness, bodies give way to fatigue. However, in today’s noisy culture, there exists an almost obsessive tendency toward unending busyness. Rest and yielding to silence has for many become a forgotten art or at best difficult. But on days like today, in the midst of the noise a profound silence can be found in rain, and in that silence some seem still to be able to hear the slowing voice of quietude. And I find that if one takes time to sit, listen, and watch the rain, an ancient holy voice has a way of pulling him/her into a deep peacefulness. What’s more if the listener seeks a way to come back again and again to that quiet place, an intimate relationship begins to form. Mother Teresa once said, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. . .We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” -Psalm 46:10 ✝
