Silence and Sound
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Nature embodies the creative and generous heart of God. It is beautiful, diverse, musical, and alive. It is both silence and sound. It has rhythms that require our attention. Like a guest, each season brings a gift to bless the hospitable host. Winter drives our roots deep to be nourished in the well of the earth. Spring reveals Life emerging from Winter’s solitude.
Out of the quiet and dark, the voice of God spoke from the depth of His heart to produce light and land and life- the life above the water, in the water, and alongside the water. Life itself was the gift of God, birthed from His heart. Out of the abundance of His heart, His mouth spoke and Nature was born. Each night a death, each morn a resurrection. Each morning is a world made new.
My family went out of town for Thanksgiving, but I had to stay home to work. A household of six reduced to one becomes of pall of loneliness. The reverberations of silence can be overwhelming. Henri Nouwen writes of the tension between loneliness and solitude in Reaching Out. As Vincent said in “Beauty and the Beast”, the 1987 TV series; “I remind them of what they most fear…their aloneness.”
When created, everything was very good. But the human was alone, and this was not good. It is not good to be alone. So, on Thanksgiving morning, I went to Radnor Lake to feel more un-alone. I sat by the lake, early in the morning, and watched the world wake-up. The sun was separating light and darkness. I noticed: the sound of squirrels jumping from dead limbs, the beating of wings as the gadwalls danced across the surface the water, the gentle tugging of a deer on low hanging tendrils, the rippling disruption of the lake as fish peered above the water, the surprising roar of the creek water-fall, the rhythmic thumping of a distant woodpecker, the faint whistle of wind through the bullrushes… It was like watching God create anew. It was mesmerizing and tranquil.
I thought of Henri Nouwen’s words: “Only speak words born in silence.” There is so much noise in the world. In the silence, we discover how much of the noise was not in the world, but in us. CS Lewis described heaven as all music and silence. Claude Debussy described the relationship this way: “Music is the silence between the notes. The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” But the silence can become lonely. It is here that Henri Nouwen (in Reaching Out) encourages us to reach out to ourselves in order to discover the music of solitude.
Listening to His music, it is melodic and symphonic. The vibration of His voice breathing life, singing to us as Zephaniah says, “He will take great delight in You, He will quiet your with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. Yes, the Lord your God is with you.” The vibrations of creation sing over us and quiet us in echoes of His song. Dr Howard Thurman, as a boy, would go out to an old oak tree in his backyard in Florida when he felt lonely. He pressed his back up against the tree. In this moment, he described feeling connected to all living things. He would later describe it as a “religious experience.” He saw all life as a beautiful expression of its Creator. This is an example of loneliness becoming a healing solitude.
Richard Foster, in his book Prayer, reminds us that in winter trees still grow. Their roots grow deep during this quiet, cold, and often dark time. This season is unlike the glorious applause of Spring. Roots must search for nourishing places well below the frozen surface. For the Life of Spring, these roots plumb the realm of the Grave. When lonely times are filled up with noise and chaos, we can miss the blessing of solitude. For us, it is a time to connect with the well of Life. Rather than desperately grasping for someone or something to fill the pain of this space, befriend it. Grounded, anchored, and sustained in this place, we are fully prepared to respond to the call of Spring, a call that opens up and presents itself to others as a gift.
His healing touch remains in creation. John Muir wrote about going into Nature and having his health restored. Many authors have written about the anxiety that grows in a population suffering from Nature deprivation and have described in detail the healing properties of being in Nature. God’s Divine Breath sings Nature into being; Paul even says in Romans that it speaks of His very Presence in His world. His abundance and generosity is overwhelming, so much variety, so much diversity, so much color, so much texture,…Sitting by the Lake that He made, observing a glimpse of the creation process unfolding before me, the longing for the Garden stirs. No striving. No noise. Nothing to be anxious about (other than how far away the bathroom is). There is silence. There is music. This is solitude, and it is very good. The lonely place is transformed into a place of communion as we sit by the still water with the Beloved of our soul.
