We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa
I'm feeling a need for silence lately. Where I used to move through my days with a constant selection of CDs or my favorite classical station from Portland as soundtrack to my activities, recently I've been shutting down the sound after I finish with my yoga music. Actually, I wasn't even aware of this change until, over several weekends, when Mike asked what music I wanted to listen to and my response was silence, it became evident. I haven't analyzed why this is the case; it just is and I'm letting it just be. I enjoy listening to classical music online while I'm writing (link above) but not every night as it depends upon my need for concentration and the programming at any given time. I've noticed that, late at night, the radio station tends to play (for lack of a better term) alternative classical which sometimes is a stretch for me, as it was just now when I turned it off leaving me in ... silence.
Rather than hunt around for a photo to represent the quote in this post I am going to recommend that you visit Wayfaring Wanderer and view her 8-4-08 post titled, "Seven Down....." which is her [366] Photographic Journal where she shows thumbnails of her photos that she featured at her blog in the month just passed.
Specifically, notice her "My Favorites from JULY" that follow the thumbnail shots. Wayfaring Wanderer selected seven favorite photos for July. And Mother Teresa wrote the quote that describes them...
10 comments:
There's a quote by Thomas Carlyle which might fit your present mood: "Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
Mother Teresa sounded like she new what she was talking about eh?!
Nature fills me with silence....and so does your ultimate compliment :o)
Thank you!!
Great post. I love Mother Theresa's quote. Very simple, yet very true.
Lisa
I apologize. I misspelled Mother Teresa. Could you fix it for me before posting?
Lisa
RaccoonLover1963 -
Lisa, I'm publishing my reply to your comments immediately and here's why. I attempted to correct the spelling of her name, but Blogger doesn't allow altering comments from others. My only option was to remove them. You mustn't feel badly about the tiny error; I had to keep scrolling up to her quote to confirm the correct spelling to use in the body of my post! Worse than that, I have a niece with that name and I always question my spelling.....:)
Francessa,
A quite thought-provoking quote; thank you :)
WW,
aww, you're welcome :)
my way of experiencing silence is looking up in the sky. it seems like a passe. . .but there's so much truth that God is the greatest painter with the sky as His canvass. He paints portraits every minute. A priest once told me that when you feel low just look up in the sky and God will amuse
you with His portraits.
btw, one of my favorites is Dvorak's Songs my mother taught me. here's a link to that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5854HT54Ges&feature=related
Have a great day Lydia!
Dex,
That's a lovely observation. The sky really is silence. Zenspace, there in my blogroll, posted his poem "Air" in June at his blog. It begins with these words:
We dwell
At the bottom
Of the sky
I love that!
I'll also love sharing the Dvorak composition as a favorite of ours... ;) Thanks for the link!
I'm going to... kinda disagree. I don't think that God is a God of silence. I believe the Bible when it says that the heavens declare the glory of God. I believe that from sunrise, with the exit of fog and the blossoming of flowers, to sunset, with the awakening of night and the glorious display of stars, and back to sunrise that creation screams at us to look further. I believe that God longs to speak to us. However, we only hear His voice in the quiet. We're so concerned with self and pride and ambition that we crowd out his voice. I, too, love the mountains or the sea, places where I can get away from worldly distractions and come face to face with God's glory. I become more aware of my self-centeredness because it sticks out like a sore thumb in those places. That, to me, is the true value of silence.
Andrew,
It's quite alright to disagree! Your thoughts are beautifully expressed and I enjoyed reading them.
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