Living Tree Poetry

“Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
Hans Margolius

“I have come to believe more and more that God also speaks through the fathomless quiet of the holy place within us all which is beyond the power of anything that happens to us to touch although many things that happen to us block our access to it, make us forget even that it exists. I believe that this quiet and holy place in us is God’s place and what it is what marks us as God’s. Even when we have no idea of seeking it, I think various things can make us fleetingly aware of its presence – a work of art, beauty, sometimes sorrow or joy, sometimes just the quality of a moment that apparently has nothing special about it at all like the sound of water over stones in a stream or sitting alone with your feet up at the end of a hard day.”
Frederick Buechner

“It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.”
K.T. Jong

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
Jeremiah 33:3

MY PRAYER today is for retreat.  What do we find when we retreat from the world, a larger world altogether.  Rumi says, ‘your heart is the size of an ocean, go find yourself in its hidden depths’. Sometimes finding yourself can look to others like withdrawing.  Silence is scary, often because in silence people are going somewhere we can’t follow.  Tonight after a couple of disappointments with family members my son choose silence, and wanting to reach him, I had to tell myself he would learn more by listening to himself than by listening to me.  Anger has to sometimes look at itself in a mirror long and deep until it starts to dissolve, and merge into features we recognise once more.  Sorrow has to sit and settle, to become a still pool that reflects the light again.  All these things start and finish inside, we can find the words to communicate, but we cannot fully share those deep things within.  Today I pray for us the truths, that emerge from the depths of our hearts, and in their time seep and settle into the rest of us.

These are drawn from daily prayers and reflections I write my Chaplaincy colleagues.