Introduction

Music is made beautiful by the rests between notes; the fire is fueled by the space between logs; and the field, left fallow, is thus fortified for planting and harvest. Stillness and its close ally silence are paradoxical sources of life, beauty, and vibrancy. Br. David Steindl-Rast describes silence as something “not only as perceived by the ears, but also a quietness of the heart, a lucid stillness inside.” 

Amidst the demands of daily life, it’s easy to think that accessing this inner stillness — this quietness of the heart — can come only by way of a long retreat, vacation, or radical shift in our lives. And while retreats and holidays can certainly deliver a welcome reprieve, it is only through daily practice that we can create and access the kind of silence Br. David is describing — a silence that is not so much a lack of sound as an inner quiet, not so much an absence of movement as a stillness in its midst.

If you’ve ever listened closely to the ocean’s tide, you know that there’s a brief and surprising quiet that lives just between the ebb and flow of each wave. It’s easy to miss because the waves breaking are both visually and audibly “louder,” but there it is, like the rest between notes in music, propelling life forward. There’s an invitation in that space, a mirroring of our very breath, to be still, to listen differently, to look around, to slow ourselves even while the waves, always, continue to crash.

As an orientation to life, grateful living invites us to expand our capacity to live into all that life offers, to notice and appreciate what is available to us not only in the rich cacophony of life’s colors and sounds, but also in its silences and its stillness. Welcoming silence, it turns out, is actually an expansion of our awareness, not a diminishment. It’s another way of becoming more fully alive. Br. David writes, “There is a negative meaning to silence and a positive one. Negatively, silence means the absence of sound or word. …For those who know only the world of words, silence is mere emptiness. But our silent heart knows the paradox: The emptiness of silence is inexhaustibly rich; all the words in the world are merely a trickle of its fullness.” 

If we allow it (and sometimes even when we don’t), the volume of the world can be overwhelming, not only in sound but in activity, information, news, to-do lists, obligations, and necessities. There’s an old saying that one cannot live in the retreat house; most of us live in the noise, literal and figurative, of the world. To make our way with intention and agency, rather than simply being carried along on life’s currents, silence and stillness offer a life ring to grab hold of — a daily opportunity to pause, look around, savor, and make meaning. The consistent cultivation of silence and stillness is not a turning away from the world but a way of equipping ourselves to remain engaged. Like our every breath, inner silence and stillness are always there, waiting for us to notice and remember that being fully alive depends on them.

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• How do you welcome silence and stillness in your life? Does anything get in the way?
• Is there an aspect of your life now that would benefit from intentionally cultivating more silence and stillness? What might that look like?

One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
And work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying,
And play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling,
And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or notice,
And people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain.