Last Saturday the women of the D.O.K. had their semiannual Quiet Day at the church. These started a few years ago when they asked me to lead a day of guided prayer and quiet time for reflection. Over those years I have presented them with themes of A Marian Advent, Easter 3 & 4 Collects, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and Praying the Psalms. The theme for this past Saturday was Mary Magdalene.
In short, the day is focused on three long silent periods during which the women can make use of a question or thought presented to them for prayer and meditation. These three periods follow Morning Prayer, Holy Eucharist, and lunch. The day closes with Evening Prayer and a final thought of the day. It must be working for them because they keep asking for these Quiet Days.
While the women are scattered throughout the building deep in prayer or thought or contemplation of one kind or another, I also make use of the quiet time doing some reading, going over Sunday's sermon, or letting the sounds and words of ancient church music wash over me. While this is designed as a Quiet Day for the D.O.K., I also participate and find it helpful.
It was during this latest Quiet Day that I noticed something . . . quiet days are LOUD. Birds angrily chirp at each other in some kind of territorial argument. Footsteps echo in the quiet building as one or more of the participants move around to stretch their legs. People cough. Traffic noises are more noticeable. The building creaks. Furnaces kick on and off. These may be Quiet Days, but they are certainly not silent.
As I sat in the quiet of the not-so-silent Quiet Day, I asked myself, “Where do people hear God?”
One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from 1 Kings 19 – “But the Lord was not in the wind, the Lord was not in the earthquake, the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.” God was not, in this instance, in any of the big events, but in the sound of sheer silence.
On any given day, I hear traffic, footsteps, voices, wind, rain, arguments, furnaces, and any number of other things. Most of the time I tune them out and they become so much white noise that I simply ignore as I go about my day. But by tuning out all those noises, by not paying attention to them, by not acknowledging the silence that brings them to the fore, am I also not paying attention to the voice of God? Am I tuning out God as just so much background noise?
This Lent, spend some time in quiet; what you hear just might surprise you.
Amen.
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