Our dinner-table conversations with the kids seem to pivot between the ridiculous and the ultra serious. There is no in-between. Either, there are jokes about Thomas the Train crossing the road or there are existential complaints about prayer.
Why do you say we should listen to God when I can’t hear him? even the four-year-old wants to know.
I Don’t Know what His voice sounds like! another child chimes in.
In all honesty, even our serious conversations collapse toward the ridiculous until I, utterly exasperated, announce:
“Let those who have ears to hear, hear! Now clear the table.”
***
***
Snow is falling again. The world outside my window is dusted in silence, but I am listening. I am waiting for the wind to “shake a thousand whispers from the yew,” as T.S. Eliot writes in “Ash Wednesday.” Specifically, I want to hear a whisper about Lent. It is nearly here, and I don’t yet know how to set the time apart.
I still believe in sacred time, though I live in a world of Sunday-morning swim meets and Sunday-afternoon birthday parties. I know that, without some effort on my part, all time looks the same whether or not it is the same.
And yet, every year I seem to arrive at Ash Wednesday utterly emptied. Without even the energy to give up chocolate or add in more prayer or commit to some act of service. Whereas Advent fills me to overflowing with words and ideas and inspiration (so much so that I have blogged every day of Advent for three years running), Lent finds me spent. Dry.
Lent finds me listening to silence, desperately hoping that silence has something to say. That it isn’t the absence it sometimes seems to be.
***
When I picture that forehead smudge of ash, I hear the words of one of our oldest Christian hymns: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” I am dust and dust I will be again, and there seems nothing else to say. I will keep silence.
But I am a reader and a writer, and what it means to keep silence is complicated. Perhaps, it is always complicated, for each of us.
Silence might be the fruit of humility, but I can remember using it as a weapon. When I was a girl with two younger sisters I wielded my ability to hold my tongue like a sword. I may have been just as responsible for the argument, but if I whispered while she yelled, I would appear innocent when our parents doled out punishment. I was the evil queen of silence.
For years I told myself I would never write on the internet – I would keep silence – but my reasons were selfish. I was afraid to be that vulnerable. I was afraid to risk looking like a fool. Silence as shield. Silence as upper hand.
***
I seek an invisible God, and I must not forget that. Of course, there is little danger of this thanks to my small dinner companions. Even the four-year-old cries Why can’t I SEE Him? Why can’t I HEAR Him?
Why, indeed, dear one.
To remember his invisibility and his silence is not to keep him at a distance. Far from it. It is the reminder I need to look hardest from the corner of my eye. To observe closely the spaces between those things right in front of my face.
He hides, but he hides in plain sight.
He is silent, but He is the Word.
This is what I want my children to know: Believe that He can be found, and you will find Him.
***
Suddenly, my calendar is overfull. I said yes, and yes, and yes, and now I am staring down a Lenten gauntlet of circled dates and fiercely scribbled reminders.
But I think it will turn out fine. The trick, I am learning, is to focus on the spaces between. The gaps. The pauses. The moments that leak silence.
Ash Wednesday is the first rupture, the first crack in the usual order of things, and I will welcome it. I may have no plan. I may have no energy to implement even the plan I do not have. But these forty days are set apart.
Sacred days for seeking.
Sacred days for finding.
***
To take a deep breath and await the gifts of Lent, thank you for the reminder to find the holy in the pauses. I’m a pastor and find myself planning and planning for others, and hope to take deep breaths myself to let the sacred sweep over me. Peace be with you.
Oh how I love this Christie.
Silence, listening, such important concepts of our spiritual journey.
My blog on Thursday will invite you to journey through Lent with me. It is a simple invitation. Lets daily pray Psalm 139, the last two verses, “search me O God …”
Then listen for his words to us.
I would love for you and your friends to join me on this Lenten adventure.
May I link your blog to my invitation?
What a beautiful, simple plan, Sue. I love it. It is exactly what I need right now – a reminder to be open, expectant, repentant. Yes, I will join you! And please do link back. It’s good to journey with others.
I am so with you, Christie. No plan. A Holy kind of expectation. Hope without the specifics.
I don’t have a clear plan this year either. (And my Lent is always a DIY venture, since my people don’t observe — or, some of them, even know about — the liturgical calendar.) Last year I tried to give up gratuitous humor, and it was the … least successful Lent abstention ever. (Caffeine was much easier.) It was a form of choosing silence, though.
I know this is bad form and I don’t mean to hijack your post, but I wrote about silence for a Lenten devotional last year. Then unexpectedly (but perhaps predictably) had to practice what I was preaching.
http://www.thehighcalling.org/reflection/suffering-glory-servant-part-one
I love the photo of that old treasure chest. It appears to be unlocked.
Laura, your devotional is wonderful. The idea of silence is pressing so heavily on my mind right now, I’m grateful to have more to ponder. I think mine will be a Lent of quiet pondering. And, yes, I believe the treasure chest is unlocked. Always unlocked.
So powerful, Christie. Thank you.
I’ve been thinking about the first line of Desiderata: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” That will be my Lenten meditation this year.
Glory here, right here, in the cracks, the in-between. Thank you, as always, Christie for your rich words.
Thank you for this–your words in general and this post resonate deeply.
Oh my goodness, I loved this post. Lent is new for me. I started “celebrating” it, if that’s the right word, a few years ago. I don’t do it in a traditional way, giving up something. Instead I kind of approach it like Advent. A purposeful time of rediscovering Christ so to speak. This year as a family we’re using the Messiah Mystery material from Family Life today. We’re not far, but the kids seem to be getting something out of it.
And “I was the evil queen of silence.” Ha, so was/am I. Definitely my weapon of choice.
Christie,
This is beautiful. Achingly so. I find myself craving silence this busy Lenten season, I’m only goin to find quiet in the cracks. Praying for you, sweet friend. May he surprise you with His own whispers, in between the blu of activity.