Lately I have found peace and stillness a great thing. Being in my last year of school I still live with my parents. They are the best parents anybody can ask for: caring, loving, even the nagging of my mum is a beautiful thing as she pushes me to do my studying. They are currently away on holiday celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, and I have been left in charge of the house, cat, washing and food shopping; I even have a certain obligation to look after the stinky cows. At first I hated coming home to a silent house and not being able to listen out for Dad's roaring chainsaw somewhere deep on the land, or coming home to the smell of Mum's cooking, I have, shockingly, discovered my love for coming home to an empty house to do as I please. Over the 3 weeks that my parents are away I have decided to live in silence, and it's truly beautiful. Okay, so I watch the odd hour of tv every night, but I no longer listen to the radio 24/7. I expected that, during my parents departure, I would live in a messy house, with dirty laundry piling up around me, and takeaways for dinner; but I have taken the opportunity to live in silence, I have kept up with the house work and even done a lot of studying; why it was only last night that I spent 4 hours sat at the dinning room table to carefully study every word of my biology book.
I have always been told that God is found in the silence of your heart, that He can truly be present with you in beautiful silence; I have always thought that this is some beautiful ideal that Nuns and Monks can only achieve through hours of meditation, but I have found it: in my own home. I was always scared of the silence, scared that I may hear something that I don't want to hear, scared that 'something' may get me. It's not true, silence amplifies God's infinite beauty. Silence for your thoughts to flow without restraint, and to concentrate on the creation around you that you so easily miss with noise and distraction surrounding you. Sitting outside the other day, I heard a Tui, the sound of it's croaky cackle turning into the divine song that can't be explained; the sound gave me joy and happiness to hear as it reminds me that Summer is slowly on its way. But the best part of silence is just being present with God, just to spend time with Him in the depth of your heart, to just ... be.
"There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one's mind and one's subtle body rest upon that, and not rest upon anything else.God is sound and silence Attain therefore contemplation,contemplation in silence on Him."
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