Reflection by Douglas Kennedy.
I want Howard Thurman to be wrong. I want everyone that’s said it’s good to be still, meditate, or find a place apart to also be wrong. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Martin Luther King Jr., Oprah, my therapist – all misguided, surely. Unfortunately for me, research shows how silence, stillness, and moments of reflection help to retrain our brains to be more compassionate and tolerant towards ourselves and others. From a spiritual perspective, quiet and stillness help us connect to that which is divine within us. For me, getting to a space of quiet contemplation feels like the 40th Psalm. I’m in the mud and mire…except I’m not waiting patiently as the scripture suggests. Squirming, I only sink deeper into the muck. Eventually, God came to the rescue through the words of Acoustic Ecologist Gordon Hempton: “Real quiet is not an absence of sound, but [an absence] of noise,” he says. The absence of my phone dinging, not the absence of my natural movement. Check. I don’t actually have to be still. But then we come to the real problem of why I find quiet contemplation so intolerable. Gordon continues, “Silence is the ‘think tank’ of the soul. It takes us to a very deep place...” That place can seem dangerous, and it requires immense vulnerability to visit. Sometimes, it requires that we do battle with our own armor – the swords, shields, and masks that we’ve carefully sharpened, pounded, and fastened to fit just right over the places we feel weakest. That armor is heavy and perfectly tailored; how do we even begin to take it off? God through Gordon Hempton saves me again: “We don’t need to answer silence. We can just be with the silence…And when we’re truly listening, we also might become changed by what we have heard.” That’s the real, meaty, wrestle it to the ground like Jacob and the angel truth – we don’t have to do anything. The silence, and God in that silence, takes off our armor and lifts us out of the slimy pit. Our only job is to find the type of quiet that works best for us, that creates resonance.
Sitka Spruce, which grows in Southeast Alaska, is used in a majority of acoustic instruments because of its natural ability to resonate when excited by sound energy. However, it doesn’t need us to play, craft, or shape it in order to produce song. The logs of fallen trees can reverberate on their own when struck by the force of the wind, waves, or whatever other energy source comes their way. They create music by just being. Like nature’s logs, let God’s energy shape you in silence. Let it allow you to reverberate with the knowledge that by just being, you are a song.
Douglas Kennedy is a wanderer, wordsmith, and storyteller. To find his voice, he helps others discover their own. You can find more of his writing at queerwanderings.com.