Thursday, May 6, 2010

Silence

This morning I sat in silence, on the floor of a little hideaway at church.  A blizzard of ideas and thoughts raced through my mind, one chasing another like cats after birds.

I stick with it, though, because I know that I can.  And I know that behind the blizzard is a silence I dearly need.  So I repeat a simple mantra - "The God of Love" - and return to the tidal rhythm of my breathing.  Just that.  Inhaling and exhaling.  Inhaling and exhaling.  My breath.  Ruah.  My mortality at home in my flesh.

It's so very fragile, this meditation practice, and so many desires seem more important.  So many worries seem more consequential.  But more and more, it's this practice I can't live without, this practice that sounds like a Tibetan prayer bowl through my day.

It's odd, really, because I live and trade and work so much with words.  Words are the tool with which I teach, preach, counsel, wonder, write.  In my fifth decade, I've grown into words in a way that's surprised me.  I'm comfortable with my choices, with my writing, with my speaking.  I like being able to frame issues and articulate emotions and teach.

And still this silence - every morning, this silence - it reminds me that there's a language beyond mine.  My ideas are fragmented, human, shot through with my own vulnerability and contradiction.  That's all I have, all any of us have.  Amazingly, this fragile language brings deep joy and creative possibility a good bit of the time.  Not all of the time, but a good bit of the time.  And yet, the language of God is something else: a language more visceral than my intellect, a language more lasting than my intuition or suspicion, a language more mysterious and universal than my little life.

Silence.  The language of God.

I sat on the floor of my little hideaway this morning, coming back to my breath, listening to a dozen birds just beyond the dusty window.  The silence here isn't Christian silence or Buddhist silence, it's not American silence or Asian silence.  It's not even happy silence or sad silence.  It's the beginning, hidden in the end of everything, and it's the end, hidden in the beginning.  It's the mysterious ground of all being, all breathing, all hurting and all hoping.  In my life of words, I need it more and more, this practice that grounds me.

So I listen for no-thing and everything.  I wait for no-thing and everything.  I rest and delight in no-thing and everything.  Just the language of God.