In the Still of the Night
“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where I renew my springs that never dry up.” Pearl Buck, Nobel Prize winning author and 1949 founder of Welcome House, the first international, interracial adoption agency.
Have you ever stood on a deserted beach, the sounds of the ocean’s waves and an occasional seagull your only company? Most people say that is one of the most serene moments in life. Others say their gift of silence lives on the top of a snow-covered mountain, only a large white rabbit peeking from the bushes to interrupt their silent moments.
Today, our over-extended lives include days fill with work related chores, personal errands, and family related tasks, ad infinitum. Of course, there is satisfaction, even joy, in some of these tasks. But perhaps not all of them. One father, visited by his two adult daughters over the Christmas holidays, was so distracted that he put one daughter’s holiday clothing in the cleaners for her, and then promptly forgot them. By the time he was able to focus on her favorite — and now missing outfits, the cleaner had left for his holidays! Daddy’s excuse: too much to do in too little time.
Sadly, some people don’t get any moments of solitude because they can’t tolerate living with themselves. And, so, running from themselves, they lose the one thing they need most: moments getting to know themselves. The answer? A planned excursion into silence; a time to slow down, opt out, and enjoy the still of the night – or day.
Some find this silence in running alone, the wind in their hair their only companion. One woman trades her work for a small A-line cabin in the woods. Her favorite story? She once climbed over a little shaky bridge leading to her home made cabin, walked in deep grass, raised her foot, looked down and stopped just in time. Her foot was poised over a huge, fat black sleeping snake. She says laughing, “We both ran in different directions. He was as afraid of me as I was of him!” She loves those off beat moments in her otherwise very organized life and the things she learns about herself during them.
Meditation for the Day
“True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” William Penn, a celebrated English Quaker, founder of the colony of Pennsylvania
Action for the Day
Today, I’ll create a time for silence so I may renew my inner life, talk to the creativity in me, and drink in the spiritual serenity that comes on quiet feet.
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