“Going nowhere…isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.” – Leonard Cohen
Last weekend, I helped lead an advent retreat at the Marianist Retreat & Conference Center just west of St. Louis. Whenever I return to this beautifully spiritual place, I feel like I am returning to “nowhere,” as Cohen writes above, to a place where I can step away for a while and see everything a bit more clearly. And I think I begin to hear more clearly and succinctly, too, as the noise of the city and everyday life melts away and I find myself surrounded more and more by silence.
In that silence, I have found, I can often “hear” what God is saying to me, can begin to discern more clearly what God perhaps has been saying all along when I was too busy to listen and life was just too loud. Sitting in the chapel late last Friday night, I began to think of this silence in terms of music, which is itself made up of both sound and quiet, of course. In the “music” of this all-to-hard-to-find silence, I began to feel myself drawn in the direction of the master composer and musician, the One who brings all to life, throws beauty over the world like a prayer shawl, and invites us all to “waste time with him” every once in a while. So I wrote this short poem:
The light in the chapel has been dimmed
the retreatants retreated to their rooms
the silence of night surrounding me and ringing in my ears
a present but somehow unheard concerto.
Quiet like the drawing of a bow across invisible strings within
a soundless song that yet angles me in your direction
points me toward your presence
floating in the room like a single bright yellow fan of a gingko leaf
dropping slowly and freely and yet
demanding my attention
asking for my consent and response
requiring my awe like a whispered sigh from my lips.
A song, yet not sung
as silence demands itself to be heard alone.
O you, who make the leaves fall noiselessly.
O you, who make the silence sing.
O you, who compose and give life
and demand we play it through to the orchestrated end.
Only you, O God.
Only you.
Happy third Sunday of Advent to you. It’s a time to stand still and learn to be amazed. In the immortal words of E.B. White’s sage spider, Charlotte: “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” For it’s there.
14 comments On The Creative Spirit: Music in the Silence
Beautiful! Thanks for using your God given talents to inspire me, as you speak to my soul!
Merry Christmas Steve. Thank you for this present!
Thanks for the beautiful Advent reflection! May you and your family have a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy and Holy New Year!
I think than poem will sing Steve. maybe you and Phil and John put some notes together. thanks for what you do. It always inspires!!
Thank you Steve! I too was on a retreat last weekend sponsored by our diocese. I can so relate to your thoughts. You just put them so beautifully into words. Merry Christmas
Mary
Hi Steve,
I read your poem and I can feel myself choking up from the immense emotion that wells up within.
With each sentence I conjure up the picture and your last verse rises to a crescendo that Him and Him alone is the Maestro, who orchestrates everything.
Inspiring, Steve, truly inspiring. Thank you for these moments.
A Blessed and Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones.
Warmest regards,
Lily Lee
Thank you, Lily, for sharing those beautiful thoughts…
Thank you, Mary!
Thanks, Jim….I’ll give that some thought….
Thanks, Debbie. All the best to yours, too.
Thanks, Kathleen, for taking the time to write.
Thanks, Judy, for those kind words.
Inspires Peace & Serenity, the Blessings of this Season.
Thanks, Sheila!