{"id":507,"date":"2011-10-01T15:58:57","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T22:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/amusingamma\/?p=507"},"modified":"2011-10-01T15:58:57","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T22:58:57","slug":"seeking-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/amusingamma\/2011\/10\/seeking-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Noise surrounds me. Even on a morning home alone, the planes buzz, the mowers grind, the washer hums. But more difficult to evade and mask is the raucous and endless noise in my head, the monkey mind. And the best parts of me long to BE STILL and KNOW GOD.<\/p>\n

I know some ways of turning the noise down, externally and internally. I have learned that not turning on the radio and TV in the morning until I have had time for quiet helps to preserve the intimacy of my dreaming sleep. I know the places that hold the stillness more firmly where I dwell. I can choose to wait until later hours to let appliances loose.<\/p>\n

However, maybe the most important spiritual practice that I can keep entering is that of becoming absolutely still, breathing in, breathing out, slowing my breath, focusing on a sacred word or image. But I am so squirrelly and antsy: my foot itches, my back hurts, I remember the phone call that needs to be returned. Even when I do become very still, I am always tempted, and sometimes succumb, to looking at my watch for the time. But lately, my soul is craving quiet and stillness so urgently that I am determined to practice stillness and silence until it becomes a more organic part of my interior rhythm.<\/p>\n

For all its words, Hebrew and Christian Scripture \u00a0invite us into silence as part of a sacred rhythm. Cadences are set in many liturgies:\u00a0The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence. <\/em>Elijah\u2019s pyrotechnical encounter with the Holy led to the sound of sheer silence. The drama unfolds in the Book of Revelation with the opening of the seventh seal followed by silence in heaven for about half an hour. \u00a0Sound and silence.<\/p>\n

How will I pursue the silence which mysteriously opens and fills me? here are some hopes and paths into the sacred rhythm:<\/p>\n