Tag: Quiet

An Advent Threshold: Waiting in Silence

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We have waited in silence
on your loving-kindness,
O God.
~Psalm 48:8

…it should be that of your inner self,
the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is of great worth in God’s sight.
~1 Peter 3:4

The Lord is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth be silent before him.
Habakkuk 2:20

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence
~Madeleine L’Engle “Ready for Silence”

When worries overwhelm and fretting becomes fearsome,
I need quieting.
When the noise of news headlines screams for my attention,
I seek quieting.
When there is sadness, conflict, tragedy, illness, estrangement,
I weep for quieting.
When too many balls are juggled at once, and the first one is dropped with three more in the air,
I long for quieting.
When the ache lasts too long, the tiredness lingers, the heart skips a beat, and one too many symptoms causes anxiety,
I pray for quieting.
When tempted and ready for surrender, forgetting my confidence, conviction, commitment and faith,
I am desperate for quieting.

So come now, Lord, to our human threshold,
clothed in our weakness,
to carry us back home.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between heaven and earth

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Peace, peace, peace on earth
and good will to men
This is a time for joy
This is a time for love
Now let us all sing together
of peace, peace, peace on earth…

Lyrics by Daniel Kantor
Cold are the people, winter of life,
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night,
Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping,
Flowers that will echo the sunrise,
Fire of hope is our only warmth,
Weary, it’s flame will be dying soon.

Voice in the distance, call in the night,
On wind you enfold us
You speak of the light,
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly,
Rumours of a dawn so embracing,
Breathless love awaits darkened souls,
Soon will we know of the morning.

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright,
Round yon Virgin Mother and child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Spirit among us, shine like the star,
Your light that guides shepherds and kings from afar,
Shimmer in the sky so empty, lonely,
Rising in the warmth of your Son’s love,
Star unknowing of night and day,
Spirit we wait for your loving Son.

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Making These Words More Than Words

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This is another day, O Lord.
I know not what it will bring forth,
but make me ready, Lord,
for whatever it may be.
If I am to stand up,
help me to stand bravely.
If I am to sit still,
help me to sit quietly.
If I am to lie low,
help me to do it patiently.
And if I am to do nothing,
let me do it gallantly.
Make these words more than words,
and give me the Spirit of Jesus.
Amen.
~Book of Common Prayer

The world is overwhelmed with words coming from radio, TV, podcasts, books, magazines, social media or simply our own thoughts.

I feel barraged with what to think, how to think, who to believe, who not to believe, and why to risk thinking and believing at all.

I’m left desperate for a need for silence, just to quiet myself.
All I need is to know what I am to do with this new day,
how to best live this moment.

So I come to the Word, the only Word to think and believe.
It explains.
It responds.
It restores.
It refreshes.
It consoles.
It understands.
It embodies the Spirit I need far more than I need silence.

The words I seek to hear are far more than Words.
They are God Himself.

Amen
and again
Amen.

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Keep Pouring

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As long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum  
in painted quiet and concentration 
keeps pouring milk day after day 
from the pitcher to the bowl 
the World hasn’t earned 
the world’s end.
~Wislawa Szymborska “Vermeer” tr. by Claire Cavanagh
and Stanislaw Baranczak from Here

Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

As ever, the sun rises and the sun sets, day after day.
God continues to pour out His colors across the skies.

God loves us enough to plant each of us here
with a plan for our redemption.

We don’t know how much longer.

Today we wave flags,
some in a show of power,
some in a show of gratitude,
some in a show of discontent.

Instead, I pour milk as a daily sacrament:
quietly, with great concentration and appreciation,
as that is the work I must do, day after day.

To milk the cows and raise wheat for bread
and conceive children and raise them up to pour and bake.

This is God’s created world, after all.
We must do our best to restore and preserve all that He has made.

So keep milking and keep pouring.

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In My Imagination

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I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure — if it is a pleasure —
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one —
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table —
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame. 
~Billy Collins Fishing On The Susquehanna In July

The Susquehanna by Edmund Darch Lewis
Hayfield–oil painting by Scott Prior http://www.scottpriorart.com
Shoshone Falls on the Snake River by Thomas Moran
Hare by David Stribbling

I live a quiet life in a quiet place. There are many experiences not on my bucket list that I’m simply content to just imagine.

I’m not a rock climber or a zip liner nor willing to jump out of an airplane. I won’t ride a horse over a four foot jump or race one around a track. Not for me waterskis or unicycles or motorcycles.

I’m grateful there are adventurers who seek out the extremes of life so the rest of us can admire their courage and applaud their explorations.

My imagination is powerful enough, thanks to the words and pictures of others – sometimes too vivid. I contentedly explore the corners of my quiet places, both inside and outside, to see what I can build from what’s here.

And when the light and inspiration is just right, what I see in my mind is ready to spring right out of the frame.

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It’s Like a Sanctuary

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A gang of crows was chasing off
a hawk. The little stream was laughing
and shushing itself. The hawk’s reflection
briefly blurred a pool of water
and then the pool went back to waiting
for nothing or the next reflection.
The maple trees were yellow and red,
but redder farther up the stream.
I wanted especially to share
the cloud of redder leaves upstream
with the little girl I had with me,
but she was sleeping. Walking home,
I thought the willow trees around
the pond were standing up like brooms
to sweep the sky. That was the voice
in my head describing the willow trees
as brooms, a thought to stop the world
for a moment’s moment. She might have thought
the willows looked like lashes winking
around a deep-green eye,
but as I say, she was asleep
for this excursion in the world.
And she hasn’t told me yet about
the voice inside her head. For the moment
that voice is learning how to listen
to its own mysterious silence. I expect
it’s like a sanctuary in there
with a candle glowing at the back of the room
and violets dotting the grass outside.
~Maurice Manning “Violets in the Fall” from Snakedoctor

My internal voice remains a mystery.

Although I know the silent words I perceive are my own thoughts, there are times when I wonder it that voice is coming from a place deeper than my own brain’s meanderings. Mostly it feels like running commentary about what is happening around me.

I can be surprised though.

A word I seldom use will pop up in my thoughts, with wonder or puzzlement – where did that come from and why now? Perhaps my voice is not just mine alone…

I do aim for an expectant inner stillness. without being asleep to the world. Quieting a busy brain isn’t easy. We need to retreat often to an internal sanctuary of calm, with gentleness and self-kindness, and just enough illumination to light the way to a bit of insight and a wisp of wisdom.

I’ll keep the candle glowing in the back.

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I Won’t Stop Trying…

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Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.
I also try to convince myself

that the smallest note of the smallest
instrument in the band,
the triangle for instance,
is important to the conductor

who stands there, pointing his finger
in the direction of the percussions,
demanding that one silvery ping.
And I decide not to stop trying,

at least not for a while, though in truth
I’d rather just sit here reading
how someone else has been acquainted
with the night already, and perfectly.
~Linda Pastan “Rereading Frost” from Queen of a Rainy Country. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 
I have been one acquainted with the night.
~Robert Frost “Acquainted with the Night”

I want to write with quiet hands. I
want to write while crossing the fields that are
fresh with daisies and everlasting and the
ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let them be

songs in which nothing is neglected,
not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.
~Mary Oliver “Everything” from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two

Some of you ask why I post poems by other authors when I could be writing more original work myself.

My answer, like poet Linda Pastan above is:

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

Yet, like Linda, I’ve decided not to stop trying. Since I’ve committed myself to being here every day to share something that may help me and someone else breathe in the fragrance of words and the world – I try to be the necessary and eloquent silver ping when the Conductor points at me at precisely the right moment in time.

More often, I’m the “clang” creating a ruckus ringing the farm triangle bringing in everyone from all over the barnyard for lunch.

Even when my words feel broken, or I say again what another has already said yet I feel it bears emphasis — I do try to write with quiet hands, in reverence and awe for what unseeable, unspeakable gifts God has granted us all.

I try to celebrate by illuminating words and pictures with a unique “ping” all of my own.

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A Faint Whispering

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Low clouds hang on the mountain.
The forest is filled with fog.
A short distance away the
Giant trees recede and grow
Dim. Two hundred paces and
They are invisible. All
Day the fog curdles and drifts.
The cries of the birds are loud.
They sound frightened and cold. Hour
By hour it grows colder.
Just before sunset the clouds
Drop down the mountainside. Long
Shreds and tatters of fog flow
Swiftly away between the
Trees. Now the valley below
Is filled with clouds like clotted
Cream and over them the sun
Sets, yellow in a sky full
Of purple feathers. After dark
A wind rises and breaks branches
From the trees and howls in the
Treetops and then suddenly
Is still. Late at night I wake
And look out of the tent. The
Clouds are rushing across the
Sky and through them is tumbling
The thin waning moon. Later
All is quiet except for
A faint whispering. I look
Out. Great flakes of wet snow are
Falling. Snowflakes are falling
Into the dark flames of the
Dying fire. In the morning the
Pine boughs are sagging with snow,
And the dogwood blossoms are
Frozen, and the tender young
Purple and citron oak leaves.
~Kenneth Rexroth “Snow” from The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth

Snow and then freezing rain fell for hours yesterday
so we remain cloaked and iced and drifted this morning

~we appear more pristine than we are_

Underneath this chilly blanket
we’re barely presentable,
sleep-deprived,
wrinkled and worn,
all mud and mildew beneath.

~yet a thaw is coming~

Spring will rise from its snowy bed,
lit from an inner fire
that never burns out.

Through clouds like ashes from a burning bush,
we turn aside to see God’s glory;
our eyes carefully covered
from the bright glaze of snow and ice.

We feel His flash of life as He passes by.

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For a Moment of Time

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The tree, and its haunting bird,
Are the loves of my heart;
But where is the word, the word,
Oh where is the art,
To say, or even to see,
For a moment of time,
What the Tree and the Bird must be
In the true sublime?

They shine, listening to the soul,
And the soul replies;
But the inner love is not whole, 
and the moment dies.

Oh give me before I die
The grace to see
With eternal, ultimate eye,
The Bird and the Tree.
The song in the living Green,
The Tree and the Bird –
Oh have they ever been seen,
Ever been heard?
~Ruth Pitter “The Bird in the Tree”

Then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of water. Close beside the path they were following a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off.

And then, as if that had been signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds’ music, and wherever Edmund’s eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or tidying up their feathers with their beaks.
~C.S. Lewis from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Every day now we hear hunters firing in the woods and the wetlands around our farm, most likely aiming for the few ducks that have decided to stay in the marshes through the winter, or possibly a Canadian goose or a deer to bring home for the freezer. Our usual day-long serenade of birdsong from the forest is replaced by shotguns popping, hawks and eagles chittering from the treetops, with Stellar jays and squirrels arguing over the last of the filbert nuts.

In the clear cold evenings, when coyotes aren’t howling in the moonlight, the owls hoot to each other across the fields from one patch of woods to another, their gentle resonant conversation echoing back and forth. 

During these chilly months, there are no longer birdsong arias in the trees;  I’m left bereft of the musical tapestry of chirps and trills and twitters.

So it is too quiet, a time of bereavement. The frosty silence of darkened days, interrupted by gunshot percussion, is like a baton raised in anticipation after rapping the podium to bring us all to attention. I wait and listen for the downbeat to come — the return of birds and peeper frogs tuning their throats, rehearsing their spring symphony.

May their eternal and ultimate concert never end.

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
~Emily Dickinson in an 1885 letter to Miss Eugenia Hall

Bird in a tree, bird in a tree
What you doin’ way up there?
Why do you sing, why do you sing?
Are you looking for your lady fair?
Did she fly away to another tree?
Do you know not where she hides?
All day you sing the same old song
She must be hard to find

[Verse 2]
Bird in a tree, bird in a tree
What’s it like to be able to fly?
I figure if I had wings like you
Not a wasted day’d go by
I’d fly above the mountaintops
I’d do barrel-rolls and dives
I’d snack upon the wiggly worms
And be happy all my life

[Verse 3]
Bird in a tree, bird in a tree
What you doin’ way up there?
Why do you sing, why do you sing?
Are you looking for your lady fair?
Did she leave you late in the summertime
After such a lovely spring?
Are afraid that come the winter
You’ll be left in the cold and lonely?

[Verse 4]
Bird in a tree, bird in a tree
Who taught you to sing so well?
Do you know that I am listening?
Brother bird, can you even tell?
And though your love might be far away
Even another town
You sing your song all through the day
In case she comes around

[Verse 5]
Bird in a tree, bird in a tree
Oh, the sun is getting wide
Soon the night will come
And the morning won’t be for a while
So fare thee well, dear friend of mine
What a pleasure, I must say
We both should prob’ly get some sleep
Tomorrow’s another day

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Becoming a Skeleton of Its Summer Self

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Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come.
~David Budbill, “Toward the End of August” from Tumbling Toward the End.

As the calendar page flipped to September this past week, I felt nostalgic for what is coming, especially for our grandchildren who are starting new classes tomorrow.

Summer is filled with so much overwhelming activity due to ~18 hours of daylight accompanying weeks of unending sunny weather resulting in never-enough-sleep.  Waking on a summer morning feels so brim full with possibilities: there are places to go, people to see, new things to explore and of course, a garden and orchard always bearing and fruiting out of control.

As early September days usher us toward autumn, we long for the more predictable routine of school days, so ripe with new learning opportunities. One early September a few years ago, my teacher friend Bonnie orchestrated an innovative introduction to fifth grade by asking her students, with some parental assistance, to make (from scratch) their own personalized school desks that went home with them at the end of the year. These students created their own learning center with their brains and hands, with wood-burned and painted designs, pictures and quotes for daily encouragement.

For those students, their desks will always represent a solid reminder of what has been and what is to come.

So too, I welcome September’s quieting times ushering in a new cool freshness in the air as breezes pluck and toss a few drying leaves from the trees.  I will watch the days play themselves out rather than feeling I must direct each moment.  I can be a sponge, ready to take in what the world is trying to teach me.

And so I am whispering hush … to myself.

Goodnight August, goodnight summer, goodnight leaves,
goodnight garden, goodnight moon, goodnight air,
goodnight noises everywhere.

Bonnie’s student-made desks

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The Stillness of a Feather

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Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.

…I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.
~Mary Oliver from “Today” from A Thousand Mornings

Some days warrant stillness.
On this Sabbath day of rest,
I seek to be quiet as a feather,
silently in place, listening.

Maybe, to hear each other breathe again.
Surely, to hear the Word and breath of God.

A funny thing about feathers:
alone, each one is merely fluff and air.
Together — feathers become lift and power,
with strength and will to soar
beyond the tether of
gravity’s pull on our flawed humanity
to return back to dust.

As quiet as a feather,
joined and united, one overlapping another,
we can rise above and fly
as far as life and breath can take us.

May peace be still.

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