Is there enough silence for the Word to be heard? | | |
April 2025
(Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4)
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Dear Friends ~ The kids and I stare out the window, watching birds. The juncos are my favorite, presenting in sooty suits, bowing often in a jaunty jig of seed seeking. My son enjoys the sparrows, who descend in numbers that send our feeders reeling. My daughter likes the showy birds—right red cardinals and silence shattering jays.
I am mesmerized in a manner that conjures memories of my own childhood, when wonder came in waves of such intensity it could knock the feet out from under my day, leaving me belly down, drawn to the details of a blade of grass or a grasshopper's legs. As I grew in body, mind, and vision, my sights widened to bigger pictures; a perspective that helped me find myself in academics, civics, and spirituality.
Now, solidly in middle age, I find my focus homing in, returning to small wonders. The booming voices are deafening and ever present, but it is the tiny twitters that speak to my soul. The varieties of grass growing in my garden. The patterns of planets, moons, and stars. Any tiny trait about my children. The small things matter. Seeing the small things requires some semblance of sacred silence.
I would not say that my hope in big ideas, worldwide networks, or colossal change is gone. Only that I cannot see these matters mattering without the love of small things; without the noticing of what is most close, and most consistent, and most quiet.
When I look for the fullness of all I hope for in this world, for my children, for myself, it falls short. But when I witness something real and present, however small, I know hope.
In Spring, it is all little things. A slender crocus popping up here. Delicate buds scattered across branches. Bees, sharp-set but small, showing up in numbers undeniable, turning a season. One fruit, one flower, one faithful phenomenon unfurling at a time. ~ Katie
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Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
~ Ray Bradbury
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Biophilia (noun): A hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature: A desire or tendency to commune with nature
~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary
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Everyone talks about how traveling back in time and doing something small, like killing a butterfly, can drastically change the present, but no one talks about how doing something small today, like planting a tree, can drastically change the future.
~ r/showerthoughts on reddit
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Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes in DO NOT LOSE HEART
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That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.
~ Malcolm Gladwell in THE TIPPING POINT
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You have seen so much of the outer world and had so many experiences of people, places, and things—and of course those experiences will keep coming. But now, in the second half of your life, as the outer world seems more unstable and dangerous than ever, we want you to take the same rapacious curiosity that once thrust you all over the planet with a hungry, fascinated appetite, and we want you to turn it inward.
~ Tara Roberts, from Elizabeth Gilbert's Substack "Letters From Love"
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Jubilee, wasn't it a jubilee!
Jubilee‚ wasn't it a jubilee!
We were singing out together —
shouting revelries.
Jubilee‚ Lord wasn't it a jubilee!
Jubilee‚ wasn't it a jubilee!
Jubilee‚ wasn't it a jubilee!
We were dancing by the river,
dancing by the sea,
Bouncing all the babies,
up and down upon our knees,
Laughing out happy,
crying out free;
Jubilee‚ wasn't it a jubilee!
We were banging on the banjos,
picking on guitars,
Blowing out the bass notes,
on the crockery jars,
Sliding on the washboards,
banging spoons upon our knees;
Jubilee, wasn't it a Jubilee!
We came from the valleys,
we came from the towns,
We came to see the paddlewheel
and the show boat clowns,
We came from the farmlands,
we came from the sea;
Jubilee, wasn't it a Jubilee!
~ Bill Staines, lyrics from "Jubilee, Wasn't it a Jubilee!"
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If I can't dance, it's not my revolution.
~ Quote attributed to Emma Goldman
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All words have a history. But some are particularly interesting to explore when it comes to psychology—because they're directly born from it. How many times have you been mesmerized by something, so captured by it that it was like you were in a trance? The word "mesmerize" dates back to an 18th century Austrian physician named Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). He established a theory of illness that involved internal magnetic forces, which he called animal magnetism. (It would later be known as mesmerism.)
~ Margarita Tartakovsky, MS, from the article "Psychology's History of Being Mesmerized"
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A blue-bell springs upon the ledge,
A lark sits singing in the hedge;
Sweet perfumes scent the balmy air,
And life is brimming everywhere.
What lark and breeze and bluebird sing,
Is Spring, Spring, Spring!
~ Paul Laurence Dunbar from "Spring Song" in THE COMPLETE POEMS OF PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
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The cricket doesn't wonder
if there's a heaven
or, if there is, if there's room for him.
It's fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If he can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.
He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.
This must mean something, I don't know what.
But certainly it doesn't mean
he hasn't been an excellent cricket
all his life.
~ Mary Oliver, "Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About" in DEVOTIONS
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Whether a plot in a yard or pots in a window, every politically engaged person should have a garden. By politically engaged, I mean everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others. We should all take some time to plant life in the soil. Even when such planting isn't easy.
~ Camille T. Dungy in SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN
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Singing the Trees retreat: Reweaving Connections in Edge Times // April 11-13 at Wellspring Retreat Center, Germantown, MD
You need not consider yourself a singer nor even feel that you can carry a tune; all are welcome to join in to sing your heart out, wander in the spring woods, rest in deep Silence, participate in ceremony and council to encourage the soul, dance in sacred circles, listen to story both ancient and wild, and weave community.
More information and registration details on the Friends of Silence website!
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Sophia Rising retreat: Living the Heroine’s Journey in Edge Times // May 30 - June 1 at Wellspring Retreat Center, Germantown, MD
A women’s retreat celebrating the Divine Feminine. Join us to wander the sacred land of Dayspring listening for the wisdom of the wild inhabitants of woods, stream, and fields. To listen to ancient stories rising out of the heart of the Sacred Feminine. And to gather for council and ceremony woven with the heartbeats of our drums and the power of dancing in sacred circles.
More information and registration details on the Friends of Silence website!
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1681 Patriots Way
Harpers Ferry WV 25425
304-870-4574
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