"Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness." Meister Eckhart,
A few weeks ago I spent time at my husband’s family cabin in northern Wisconsin. It is a beautiful place. Quiet lakes, tall pines, fresh, cool air…….and lots and lots of stillness. Each morning I would wake up early, get my cup of coffee and crawl back into bed where I could stare out the window at the morning light coming to the lake. It is my daily practice there to spend at least an hour or more simply sitting in silence, staring into the middle distance out the tiny window which creates a lens onto the water and all its morning glory.
On MPR yesterday I listened to an author who has written a book by Maggie Jackson entitled Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. In the interview she described the cost of multitasking in our culture, a cost that has been particularly leveled at our children and youth. In our effort to do more and more, we do many things at one time giving less and less attention to our work, our relationships,our home life, our next generation. This is creating a fractured, frenzied, frustrated society.
Stillness, being still and knowing, has become a lost art. At the same time that many houses are being built with front porches, it is rare to see anyone actually sitting on them….being still. The exception being one house in our neighborhood. Nearly every evening as I drive or walk by, at least one person will be sitting there, often simply sitting there…no book, no computer, sometimes only a glass on the table next to their chair. Each time I see them there I have a nearly visceral reaction. I want to walk right up there and ask if I, too, may sit." May I sit with you? I promise not to say a word."
One way out of our distracted lives which, according to Maggie Jackson, is leading us into another Dark Ages is to practice stillness. In practicing the lost art we will most surely come to encounter the Sacred. In being still, in paying attention to the breath that breathes through us as Spirit, we come to know the Holy One that surrounds and nurtures our exhausted lives.
Go ahead. You know you want to. Sit still.