Dwelling in Presence

February 16, 2023

A breathtaking crescent moon accompanies me as I write this morning. She reminds me that there is nothing like the moon in a dark sky to bring me to immediate silence. Like the Tibetan bell we used to ring before worship, she has the effect of instantly hushing my mind and calling me to complete attention. I am immediately under her spell and spend many minutes taking in her beauty.

Last evening, Joel and I watched “In Pursuit of Silence,” a movie that led to the book I am reading now, Notes on Silence. The movie and the book include beautiful photographs, essays and interviews with people who are in some kind of conscious relationship with silence – seeking it, studying it, reveling in it, grieving the loss of it. Now that I think of it, I don’t remember any particular images of the moon. Tall treed forests and winds through grassy fields, yes. Walking trails on monastery grounds, even one of those rooms with negative decibels level of sound, but no moon. It makes me want to ask people what brings them to immediate silence. (When I can figure out how to get you to be able to respond on this blog, please tell me!) Perhaps there are “bells” everywhere that hush people in different ways. Mine is the moon.

I was pleased when after watching the movie together, Joel told me that it helped him to understand my desire and plan for the ninety day silence. Pleased but also surprised that he didn’t fully understand it already. It was when we first started living together thirty years ago that I asked him not to speak to me in the early morning. He could give me a morning kiss, but that was it! Once the silence is broken in my mornings, the whole momentum and feeling of the day changes. While pastoring the church together, we got out of that habit. There was always something that had to be said. But in retirement, I’d like to return to that protocol in preparation for the “great silence” to come. My three months, not death!

Although I am some weeks away from beginning my three month period of silence, I am already learning some important things in anticipation. Reactivating the blog I began during the pandemic quarantine brought me the first, second, and third painful lesson.

First, when I started this particular blog two years ago, Karan, a dear friend and graphic artist, offered to help set up a most professional looking and beautiful blog site out of the goodness of her heart. I was most grateful, yet soon learned that though I love to learn from others, I like to do things for myself. But because she was so generous and excited for me, I didn’t know how to tell her. In fact, she is only learning this as I write. Not knowing how to gracefully decline or accept the help I needed (becoming more of a Mainer as I live here), I became overwhelmed and just ghosted the project…and sadly, my friend. A terrible thing to do. It also ended my project before it began, another big price to pay for my hardheadedness. Karan, I am sorry.

Next lesson. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with words. Is this a common trait of writers? I am fighting with them all the time. When I decided to resurrect this blog, I wanted to change its name. (Now, Karan could have told me immediately that this was the name of my “domain” and I couldn’t simply type in a substitute!) “Dwelling in Presence” began to feel too heavy, too pretentious, too something. I would go with something simpler like “Keeping Silence” or “Longing for God.” With a “How to start a Blog” book in hand, I tried to begin a new one thinking it would cancel out the older one. Well, it doesn’t. And now I have an extra hundred dollars on my credit card and “Deepening into Silence” is out there somewhere in the blogosphere. I can’t find it. All of this because I started fighting with my original words.

Of course, I spent hours trying to remedy the situation. I’ve learned that these “how to” books for beginners or non-techies like me never answer the actual questions you have. And perhaps this is my final lesson for today – never try to go it alone when the universe brings you a kind expert willing to help! After all these years in ministry during which I often preached that we need one another and that our lives lived in love are always give and take, you’d think I would have gotten the message.

FROM MY READING THIS WEEK:

“One’s inward journey oes not begin with a question or a hope – but a stillness. Not a destination, not a knowing – but an unknowing. A ceasing to strive. One does not begin to know themselves with a fiery passion – but a quiet stillness. Cassidy Hall, from Notes in Silence, p. 12.