What emerges from the silence

A friend of mine, recently widowed, elected to fly to England to spend time with her family there, and this morning I received a note from her saying they've gotten 15 inches of snow in the last 24 hours, and it's still falling.  She's not at all sure she'll be able to get to the airport, and she's deeply concerned that by the time she DOES make it British Air will have gone on strike.

So she's tearing her hair out a bit at the forced inactivity, and wondering (as she often has in the path) why on EARTH I would ever choose to go on a silent retreat!

So it's intriguing to me that I heard from her right after reading this passage from David Steindl-Rast in this morning's readings from 365 Nirvana:

"Monasticism's central message, expressed through the chant, is the supreme importance of time and how we relate to it: how we caretake and respond to the present moment, to what is before us now.


The message of the hours is to live daily with the real rhythms of the day; to live responsively, consciously, and intentionally directing our lives from within, not being swept along by the demands of the clock, by external agendas, by mere reactions to whatever happens.  By living in the real rhythms, we ourselves become more real.  We learn to listen to the music of the moment, to hear its sweet implorings, its sober directives.  We learn to dance a little in our hearts, to open our inner gates a crack more, to hearken to the music of silence, the divine life breath of the universe."

Reading this, I feel an incredible longing to set aside the time-based demands of my life, to stop trying always to move forward, to relax into what is now and just listen to the music of the moment.  Those who are called to monasticism do that for all of us, but we who are not called in that way need to make time for those moments as well.  And I suspect it is the longing for that peace that keeps me wary of returning to fulltime employment.  Perhaps the time has come to just acknowledge that this period of my life may call for simply that; that now is a time for stopping and listening, for seeing what emerges from the silence.