Faith in a Time of Pandemic – Stillness in the Storm

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My soul waits in silence.
(6/25)
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from God comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress: I shall never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2)

“My soul waits in silence.” We live in a noisy world. There are days when we can barely find a moment of silence, whether in our homes and workplaces or in our own inner lives as we fret about personal and social problems. There are days when we need to call “time out,” turn off cable television, put down the newspaper and our newsfeed, sign off Facebook, and simply be still.

We are in a great storm. But, there is a center in the cyclone, and that center is the God-place, the inner light, within each of us. A still point in the whirling world of protest and pandemic. Yet we can find the peace that passes understanding. We can find the calm that inspires and energizes, and gives us to respond to the challenges of our time.

In silence, we don’t deny the pain of the earth. In fact, our silence awakens us to the pain of the world. If we are quiet, we can hear the tears of the planet – of the voiceless, of the forgotten, and feel our own pain in this time of upheaval.

Though Christmas Eve is six months from today, the Austrian hymn “Still, Still, Still” is on my mind today. Let us find the stillness that empowers us to bless the world. Listen to one version of this hymn, which I remember as a child from the Norman Luboff Choir, but today we listen to from Mannheim Steamroller – https://www.last.fm/music/Mannheim+Steamroller/_/Still%2C+Still%2C+Still

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Give me stillness of spirit that I might hear the deeper voices of grace – and joy and pain – in myself and in the world, and respond with your spirit of stillness, blessing the world. Amen.