In The Stillness...

This reminds me of the story of Elijah, the Prophet. He was in great distress and ran to a cave on Mount Horeb. While he was pleading with Yahweh for answers to his situation, Yahweh told him to go out to the mouth of the cave and wait for him. Elijah was sent a great wind, an earthquake and a raging fire. But God was not in any of them.

Then came a whisper. In that whisper was the voice of God. And in that moment, for the first time Elijah reacted by pulling his cloak over his face for protection or perhaps in shame. We really aren’t told. And that doesn’t really matter. The point here was that Elijah expected God to be in the HUGENESS of anything, not in the quietness of a whisper.

The Mystic/Poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi lived in the early 1200′s. The words in this jewel echo Elijah’s story found in the Bible in I Kings, chapter 19. Elijah is dated around the 9th century B.C., some 2000 years before Rumi. It is quite possible that Rumi had access to some of the early manuscripts that would later become the Old Testament of today’s Bible as he is thought to have practiced Islam who share many of the same prophets in the Holy Qur’an.

Whatever you name “God”, whether that is Goddess, Christ, Holy Spirit, Father, Abba, Universe, Higher Power, Higher Self, Creator, Holy One, Allah, Brahman, or just “Hey you! Are you listening?”, it matters not. However BIG you see that Force, know that he/she is as small as the smallest atom.

I have always been gobsmacked by the surprising way that this wonderful Being interrupts my life. I have had rough periods. I have had horrible periods. I have had sorrow. I have had joy. Like Elijah, when I seek his wonder in the BIG, she always surprises me with not being there at all; but in the small, still, quietness.

Have you had the experience of walking into a giant architectural marvel called a cathedral and just sat in silence and felt with assurance that you were not alone? Have you ever had that same experience just sitting by a quiet lake or stream? Have you had it whilst jumping up and down frantically, screaming in stress? Or when the TV or audio device was blasting your eardrums? I know my experience is that it is usually (and I’m being very cautious with the word usually, because it is almost always actually) when I take the time to be quiet and shut out the noise of the world and calm my inner noise as well that it is then that I find the answer I am looking for. There is always an answer. Again in my experience it is yes, no or wait. But there is always an answer. I just have to listen. Or as I wrote in a series you will find in the Archives, Practice The Presence.

In The Stillness...