Pause Button
March 31, 2008
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on my Apple Computer PowerBook ScreenIn addition to silence, community customs, and the common table, the monastic practices of statio and lectio that was born centuries ago but clearly belongs in this one. Statio is the practice of stopping one thing before we begin another. It is the time between times. Joan Chittister
On an Ohio spring afternoon, bright
lemony-light slants through an open window,
into the kitchen where five-year-old Katy is
making cookies with her mother. Birds sing in
the distance.
Katy says, "Shhh, Mom, listen."
"What, Katy?"
"Shhh, listen," the child insists.
"What am I listening to?" asks her Mom.
"If you are quiet and listen, you can hear God talking to us."
It's tempting to focus on some potential payoff: What is God saying? And what's in it for me?
Or on the impediment: Why can't I hear God? And if I can't, can someone please give me the secret code? (There are plenty of well-meaning folks -and a few supercilious blowhards-who boast of some direct line to God, "God told me to say. . ." I guess I'm glad for them. But if God talks to them so much, why do they need to impress us with their self-importance?)
The wisdom of this child is unadorned. Only two words: "shhh, listen."
Shhh, listen requires stopping. Sitting still. And something even more inconvenient, waiting. There's no getting around the truth that we find wisdom (insight, understanding, acceptance) in statio - pushing the pause button.
This doesn't sit well. Literally. Because we are wired for closure. Like 4 year-old children, 5 minutes out of the driveway, on any family trip. "Are we there yet?" "Are we done now?" We want to "get somewhere," or at least add fuel to our guilt about not getting somewhere (not being where we "should be").
Here's the truth: if we were in charge, there would be no waiting allowed. Because waiting doesn't "do anything." Plus it wastes valuable time. And, quite frankly, it's not good for my blood pressure. It's exasperating and makes me do things I regret, like devouring People Magazine in my doctor's waiting area. Besides, we all know that the good life is about "activity, excitement, achievement, goings-on, urgency and getting things done." Waiting is a tribulation that must be avoided at all cost.
But what if?
What if the pause button-shhh listen-is not about achieving anything?
What if it's about receiving?
What if it's about embracing the day-this day, this moment-as a gift?
What if it's enough to allow love to break through to that place in our soul that is blocked by busyness, self-importance, self-indulgence and self-pity?
To wait. To listen. To discern. From discernere - the pause that allows us to separate, to distinguish, to sift through. Meister Eckhart wrote that we must "go into (our) own ground" of silence and learn to know ourselves there. St. John of the Cross called it "hearing silent music," for only in silence can we hear God speaking to our soul. The Psalmist was brief, "Be still and know." For Elizabeth of the Trinity, silence enables God to create a beloved solitude within the soul. (R. Bonsaint)
We could all learn from the old guy sitting on his front porch in his rocking chair, rocking and smoking his pipe. A group of young people passes by. "Hey old man, what are you doing?" The man rocks and smokes for a minute and then says, "How soon do ya need to know?"
The ferry ride from Seattle to Vashon Island, is a pause button, because it takes away my control over time. It is dusk in late March. The sun is setting, now out of sight behind the Olympic Mountains. The mountains are a work of art, rendered in deep charcoal. Against the cool-blue sky, the outline of their peaks is precise, as if drawn with a fine-point-lead-pencil. In that precision, that demarcation, there is something evocative, and it resonates deep inside. I see the very breath of God, as is I am responding to a kindred spirit.
My response is visceral, a nod of the head, and my heart wells up. I uncover no answers or instructions, nor even any certainty about my questions, but this I know; whatever urgency tugging at my heart, recedes. And I know that in waiting, listening, I am tethered to this present moment. . .without any need for resolution.
"Shhh, listen," the child insists.
"What am I listening to?" asks her Mom.
"If you are quiet and listen, you can hear God talking to us."
The quiet / To which the wise must school themselves. Jacob Boehme
Note: Jackie Novak (www.blessingcenter.org) sent me the Katy story. Jackie added this addendum, "Katy used to sit on my lap throughout Children's Chapel times in her day preschool. The teachers worried that she was monopolizing my warmth and the other children would be jealous. They never were. Katy died during Holy Week one night, aspirating vomit, just two years later. We were grateful for the nurture we gave and her guidance to us."
Katy says, "Shhh, Mom, listen."
"What, Katy?"
"Shhh, listen," the child insists.
"What am I listening to?" asks her Mom.
"If you are quiet and listen, you can hear God talking to us."
It's tempting to focus on some potential payoff: What is God saying? And what's in it for me?
Or on the impediment: Why can't I hear God? And if I can't, can someone please give me the secret code? (There are plenty of well-meaning folks -and a few supercilious blowhards-who boast of some direct line to God, "God told me to say. . ." I guess I'm glad for them. But if God talks to them so much, why do they need to impress us with their self-importance?)
The wisdom of this child is unadorned. Only two words: "shhh, listen."
Shhh, listen requires stopping. Sitting still. And something even more inconvenient, waiting. There's no getting around the truth that we find wisdom (insight, understanding, acceptance) in statio - pushing the pause button.
This doesn't sit well. Literally. Because we are wired for closure. Like 4 year-old children, 5 minutes out of the driveway, on any family trip. "Are we there yet?" "Are we done now?" We want to "get somewhere," or at least add fuel to our guilt about not getting somewhere (not being where we "should be").
Here's the truth: if we were in charge, there would be no waiting allowed. Because waiting doesn't "do anything." Plus it wastes valuable time. And, quite frankly, it's not good for my blood pressure. It's exasperating and makes me do things I regret, like devouring People Magazine in my doctor's waiting area. Besides, we all know that the good life is about "activity, excitement, achievement, goings-on, urgency and getting things done." Waiting is a tribulation that must be avoided at all cost.
But what if?
What if the pause button-shhh listen-is not about achieving anything?
What if it's about receiving?
What if it's about embracing the day-this day, this moment-as a gift?
What if it's enough to allow love to break through to that place in our soul that is blocked by busyness, self-importance, self-indulgence and self-pity?
To wait. To listen. To discern. From discernere - the pause that allows us to separate, to distinguish, to sift through. Meister Eckhart wrote that we must "go into (our) own ground" of silence and learn to know ourselves there. St. John of the Cross called it "hearing silent music," for only in silence can we hear God speaking to our soul. The Psalmist was brief, "Be still and know." For Elizabeth of the Trinity, silence enables God to create a beloved solitude within the soul. (R. Bonsaint)
We could all learn from the old guy sitting on his front porch in his rocking chair, rocking and smoking his pipe. A group of young people passes by. "Hey old man, what are you doing?" The man rocks and smokes for a minute and then says, "How soon do ya need to know?"
The ferry ride from Seattle to Vashon Island, is a pause button, because it takes away my control over time. It is dusk in late March. The sun is setting, now out of sight behind the Olympic Mountains. The mountains are a work of art, rendered in deep charcoal. Against the cool-blue sky, the outline of their peaks is precise, as if drawn with a fine-point-lead-pencil. In that precision, that demarcation, there is something evocative, and it resonates deep inside. I see the very breath of God, as is I am responding to a kindred spirit.
My response is visceral, a nod of the head, and my heart wells up. I uncover no answers or instructions, nor even any certainty about my questions, but this I know; whatever urgency tugging at my heart, recedes. And I know that in waiting, listening, I am tethered to this present moment. . .without any need for resolution.
"Shhh, listen," the child insists.
"What am I listening to?" asks her Mom.
"If you are quiet and listen, you can hear God talking to us."
The quiet / To which the wise must school themselves. Jacob Boehme
Note: Jackie Novak (www.blessingcenter.org) sent me the Katy story. Jackie added this addendum, "Katy used to sit on my lap throughout Children's Chapel times in her day preschool. The teachers worried that she was monopolizing my warmth and the other children would be jealous. They never were. Katy died during Holy Week one night, aspirating vomit, just two years later. We were grateful for the nurture we gave and her guidance to us."
Poems / Prayers
Sabbaths 1999: II
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
Wendell Berry
Guide me into an Unclenched Moment
Gentle me,
Holy one,
Into an unclenched moment,
A deep breath,
A letting go
Of heavy expectancies,
Of shriveling anxieties,
Of dead certainties,
That, softened by the silence,
Surrounded by the light,
And open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
Upheld by the unfathomable,
Entranced by the simple,
And filled with the joy that is you.
Amen.
Ted Loder (Guerrillas of Grace)
Peace,
Terry Hershey
