Creating Spaces for Silence and Stillness

Devotional Reflection, Thursday, January 11, 2024

The week of the first Sunday after Epiphany

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:

49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

You will find the full text of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 943)

AM Psalm 18:1-20; PM Psalm 18:21-50

Gen. 4:17-26; Heb. 3:1-11; John 1:43-51

David’s Reflections

Episcopal psychiatrist Gerald G. May has defined spirituality as " . . .our direct, living connectedness with the divine." *  That connectedness opens the fount of the unseen world of the Spirit, from which we slack our thirst for the divine. In today’s Gospel, Jesus compares himself to the ladder in Jacob’s vision (Genesis 28), a ladder linking the earthly and heavenly worlds, between the visible and the invisible.

  That sets my mind to wondering.  Our visible world feels so busy and noisy and cluttered.  Life flies by like fence posts through the window of a speeding car.  The visual images assault the eyes, making any deep looking a challenge.  The cacophony of sounds—the background hum of traffic, elevator music, television blaring, ringing cell phones, the clatter of dishes and voices in a restaurant—drowns out the inner voices whispering to us from that other world.

That strikes me each time I return from tent camping in some remote location.  After a week or two of listening to the wind in the trees, the chatter of a brook rushing over rocks, and the sounds of the night through the walls of the tent, returning to “civilization” comes as a shock.  It takes my spirit a few days to begin tuning out the overstimulation.  I become aware of the energy it takes to buffer the spirit against the assaults of the visible and the auditory.

Jesus' life gives me hope that a busy life, immersed fully in the daily routine, can maintain a vital link with the invisible world.  How else can one explain that remarkable life he lived out of the abundance of the world of God’s Spirit?  But, even more comes to me.  God intends that we live fully immersed in this culture.  Jesus did.  God is love and that love constantly seeks to make itself known and to connect with us in our loneliness, our woundedness, and our “caughtness.”  We will occasionally have to withdraw to preserve our link with the invisible world of the Spirit. Jesus did. But, then we can re-immerse ourselves, refreshed by that cold, clear spiritual fount’s sweetness.

Contemplative Thomas Merton put it so well. “Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring.  The spring remains more important than the stream, for the only thing that really matters is for love to spring up inexhaustibly from the infinite abyss of Christ and of God..”#

Our challenge becomes obvious.  It is for us to carve out spaces of silence and stillness within our daily round and larger spaces within our annual journey.  In those spaces, God’s invisible love and presence will have freedom to flow into our experience and keep us connected with our deepest selves and with God’s presence there.  What a joy it would be to know that someone we encountered caught a glimpse of that invisible world in the way you and I worked, played, served, and loved.

Welsh cleric and poet R. S. Thomas put it well in one of his offerings.

But the silence in the mind

is when we live best, within

listening distance of the silence

we call God.  This is the deep

calling to deep of the psalm-

writer;  the bottomless ocean

We launch the armada of

our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,

whose margins are our margins;

that calls us out over our

own fathoms.  What to do

but draw a little nearer to

such ubiquity by remaining still? +

©David W. Perkins, 2024

*Gerald G. May, The Awakened Heart:  Living Beyond Addiction (New York:  HarperCollins, 1991), p. 56.

#Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island (Garden City, NY:  Doubleday, 1967), p. 65.

+ R, S. Thomas, cited by Roger Housden, For Lovers of God Everywhere:  Poems of the Christian Mystics (Carlsbad, CA:  Hayhouse, 2009), p. 140.

Collect of the Day, First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.  (BCP, 214)

A Collect for Grace

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100)

For the Nation

Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace:  Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 258)

A Prayer for Light

O Lord God Almighty, as you have taught us to call the evening, the morning, and the noonday one day; and have made the sun to know its going down: Dispel the darkness of our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be the true God and eternal light, living and reigning for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 110)

A Collect for Mission

Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (BCP, 816-817)

Daily Office Gospel, John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you get to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer