Snow Quiet
This week, it snowed in Fayetteville. On Sunday, by the time we finished the 8:45am service, large flakes were falling. After a while, it turned to rain before becoming snow again. By the time I left the church, a fresh white blanket had fallen on everything except sidewalks and roads, and I noticed even in the short walk to my car how quiet everything had become.
Later that night, after our children had exhausted themselves and gone to bed, I stepped outside again. Everything slows down in winter weather, but the snow also has a dampening effect on all the ambient noises we are used to hearing. Like an acoustically absorbent layer of bright white foam, the snow soaks up the whistles, rattles, and rustles that normally fill the night. Standing at the end of our driveway, all I could think of was how quiet the world had become.
We need more quiet. We need more frequent and longer stretches of silence. We need silence that is not merely a muffling of the chaos and noise that surround us but a real departure from it—a break, a complete switching off of even the gentle, almost unnoticed din that hovers just below our consciousness. We need a blanket of snow-like quiet to descend in our lives again and again, perhaps every day.
Something profound happens in that sort of quiet. Our senses are sharpened. Our thoughts become louder and clearer. We become available to ourselves more fully than when a portion of our mental capacity is occupied with the unconscious processing of sound. We hear ourselves again, maybe for the first time in a long while. Then, in time, as the silence stretches on, even our thoughts get softer until they go quiet altogether. Finally, at last, we sit undistracted and unencumbered, with ourselves and with God. And, in that silent space, a different sort of encounter with the holy is possible.
For most of my life, I thought of prayer as something that I am supposed to say to God. Some of my earliest memories in church were trying to learn by heart the prayers that my parents recited from memory each week—the Lord’s Prayer and the Prayer of Humble Access. As I grew up, I learned to admire those people who prayed extemporaneously with words so beautiful that they belonged in a book. I am still nourished daily by the recitation of the prescribed words of Morning and Evening Prayer. But I am also learning that my relationship with God is nourished as much by listening as by speaking, and I now recognize that, if I am the only one who is doing the talking, I am hearing even less than half of what I really need to hear.
The hardest part about listening for God is that we cannot steal a quiet moment whenever it is convenient for us but must set aside considerable blocks of time for silent prayer. I can speak to God while I am driving, shopping, writing, or reading. I can stop whatever I am in the middle of to ask God to do me a favor, to bring healing or comfort to someone in need, or to bring an end to this awful pandemic. But, if I want to hear what God is saying to me, I must do more than put down my book, my phone, or my pen. I must be deeply and totally quiet—not the kind of quiet that comes with a few minutes of stillness but the kind that only grows from a daily pattern of pursuing silence.
This week, it snowed in Fayetteville. For a day or so, something special came and interrupted our routine. Whether walking the dog or playing outside or looking out the window or driving to work, the snow invited us to see and hear and feel something different. The previously unnoticed beauty of our neighborhoods caught our attention. The familiar joy of children and pets captivated us again. The quiet beckoned us to step away from the noise of life and be renewed in mind and spirit. This time, the snow and the silence it brought found us, and for that we are grateful. I wonder how long will it be before we go looking for it again.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan