This has been a fantastic year for silence, if you can bear it. A great year for being alone with your thoughts, if you can handle them. An incredible year for refocusing and maybe discovering that the frenetic pace you once kept was not only unwanted, but maybe even unnecessary, and perhaps, unsustainable... you just never had the chance to find out until a pandemic forced. you. to. stay. home.
A few weeks ago, the first reading at Sunday Mass was the story of Elijah, in the cave, waiting for the Lord to pass by... perhaps you're familiar with it... the Lord is not in the wind, the earthquake, the fire... but is in the "tiny whispering sound" after all of that - and approaching the mouth of the cave, Elijah buries his face in his cloak, and steps forward to encounter the Divine.
This story showed up in a few "random" places for me in the days following, and came to resonate within my soul in a new and deeper way. After all the storms of this year, God remains in that tiny whispering sound... and the tiny-ness does not obscure the profundity, or the persistence, of the whisper.
Where is that tiny whispering sound... in all this chaos?
In listening, in stepping aside to allow other voices to be heard.
In the quiet early morning runs.
In lunchtime breaks with my dog.
In the handful of people with whom I am able to spend even a little time; in such a time of isolation, this means more than it ever did before.
In sudden monsoon storms, carrying the scent of sage across the high desert in late afternoon.
In walks at sunset, when I am caught off-guard by a brilliant moonrise and stop to stare at the sky.
In that tug towards silence at the end of the day.
In listening, in stepping aside to allow other voices to be heard.
In the quiet early morning runs.
In lunchtime breaks with my dog.
In the handful of people with whom I am able to spend even a little time; in such a time of isolation, this means more than it ever did before.
In sudden monsoon storms, carrying the scent of sage across the high desert in late afternoon.
In walks at sunset, when I am caught off-guard by a brilliant moonrise and stop to stare at the sky.
In that tug towards silence at the end of the day.
It reminds me that if the Divine One wants you to know something, you can bet you'll be shown.
It reminds me that the whisper is present in even the simplest of things, those things which are easiest to miss in the noise, in the storm, in the chaos.
It also reminds me that these simple things are profoundly holy, worth the figurative burying of my face in my own cloak, because they carry the very voice of God.
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