I have a dream for the churches that I have known - a dream that one day we will be known as a place not of words, great sermons, expert teaching and wonderful activities (not that this would be a bad reputation) but that we would be known for being a place of quiet, stillness and a place of tranquility.

I think one of the great spiritual needs of our world (anxiety, busyness and stress related sickness I think are symptomatic of this) is the need for quiet, silence, being, and stillness. I think this is true for teens, as well. Our students could wrongly walk away from our churches thinking that God is pleased by noise, busyness, and much activity. That God is found in the big, the event, the extravaganza and the emotional response. Of course (as well as being a bit overstated) we know this isn’t true.

So I have a dream that we would recover the muscle to reinstate periods of stillness, silence, and quiet into our church gatherings.

Why? (that is a fair question) - consider and think on these quotes extolling what others have found in the practice of silence:

Anonymous:
“Do not speak unless you can improve the silence.”

Catherine Doherty:
“True silence is sometimes the absence of speech–but it is always the act of listening.” (from Poustinia)

“Before you can find peace outside yourself, you must have silence and quiet in your heart and in your mind.” (from Welcome Pilgrim)

Henri Nouwen:
“It is a good discipline to wonder in each new situation if people wouldn’t be better served by our silence than by our words.”

John Michael Talbot:
“As long as the pond is agitated, it remains unclear. Only through stillness does the water begin to clarify so that you can actually see what is in the pond, and so that the waters of the pond are able to reflect an image. Our spiritual life is like a pond. Anxiousness about worldly things and possessions stirs the waters of our soul, making it impossible for us to see the reality of what we are actually made of on the spiritual level, or to really reflect the Divine Image as we were created to do…. We must still our environment, with its many possessions and cares, before we can really be reborn to a whole new way of life.” (from Come to the Quiet)

Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta:
“We cannot find God in noise or agitation. Nature, trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence. The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence.”

Upside down that is how I envision the values of God’s Kingdom as Jesus explained it. It is so counter to what we see valued and practiced in our world. I was encouraged this weekend as I was reminded of an incident from the life of St. Paul. It was so cool to hear afresh the story of Paul and Silas in prison. To see Paul live out the upside down values of God’s Kingdom under dire circumstances.

Here was Paul and Silas praising God in the midst of being beaten, flogged and put in chains in a dungeon - that is amazing enough, but the story continues. Following the earthquake the chains are loosened (an apparent miracle?) - yet they don’t escape - for the good of the jailer (who certainly would have been killed) they stay put and serve their sentence.

Talk about an amazing picture of, “Love your enemies.”

Just beautiful. I guess I often am guilty of seeing Paul through His letters (which are more “doctrinaire”) and miss these glimpses of his embodiment of Jesus’ teaching found throughout the Acts of the Apostles. It was a great reminder - and incredibly challenging. What a model for us to follow. May I be found in my everyday loving my enemies, praising God in all my circumstances and being satisfied even if my lot is to suffer for Christ’s sake.

The author C. S. Lewis once wrote that, “There is all the difference in the world between reading a map of the coastline and feeling the spray of the ocean upon your face. People come to church, he said, not to be taught to read maps [about God], but to feel the spray.”

(Found in TAD, Pentecost 2003, in an article by Rev. Virginia L. Bennett)

Those who are in church leadership, must take off the tourist guide hats and drop the maps and tourist pamphlets and like “sherpas” begin to help our people journey into the deep that is God (or keeping with the sherpa metaphor; up the Everest or K2 which is God). We need fewer knowledgeable help desk tourist information centers and more trail guides or porters for the journey! Which of course would necessitate that as leaders among God’s people we must be less concerned with being able to provide right answers (and historical theology) about God and actually become acquainted with the person of God (a personal spiritual theology based on our personal encounter).

Stir in us a deep stirring, a yearning, a desire and hunger; may we learn to pray with Thomas Merton:

“My God I want to love You.
I want my will to disappear in Your will.
I want to be one spirit with You.
I want to become all Your desires and thoughts.
I want to live in the middle of Your Trinity
and praise you with the flames of Your own praise.”

(a litany from A Book of Hours by T. Merton p. 112 & 113)