I recently read Henri Nouwen’s journal, Sabbatical Journey, written during the last year of his life. When he wrote this journal, he didn’t know it would be his last journal or the last year of his life. He died suddenly of a heart attack on September 21, 1996. The journal describes a trip Nouwen took with his ninety-three year old father in December of 1995. While in Freiburg, they spent a quiet day sleeping, reading, celebrating the Eucharist, and resting. Nouwen recalls that if he was visiting a city when he was younger, no one could stop him from going out and eagerly visiting every cathedral, museum, and site the city had to offer but at sixty-four, he was content to simply spend a quiet day in the hotel with his father.
I could relate to this journal entry because though I have never been one to venture far from home, I find that I am increasingly satisfied with quiet routine days. Quiet routine days are my favorite. As I reflect on Nouwen’s journal, it seems to me that this is partially a function of age. As our bodies and energies slow down, we find ourselves enjoying the silence within more that exterior noise, but I don’t want to attribute it all to age. Perhaps having experienced so many adventures, and as the end of our days looms more largely, we learn what is essential in life. We learn that routines provide us with the spaciousness we need to listen to ourselves and to listen for God. We learn that in staying still, we find peace, gentleness, joy, and love. We come to know and feel more deeply, the beauty of the morning sun shining through the trees, the glistening of dew on the grass, and the promise of a day to live deeply our relationships with the people we love and the people we meet along the way. We learn that these small things are the gold of life and all we want to do is to slow down even more to drink it all in to the fullest of our ability.
Spiritual writer Rachel Remen writes,
As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me, coexisting with my tempers and my fears, unchanged by my joys or my pain. Sanctuary. Connected to the silence everywhere.
Rachel Remen
If we learn to grow this silent stillness within us, we find in the stillness a shelter for ourselves, a solid place in the midst of life’s turbulent seas. The beauty of growing this silent stillness within us is that it doesn’t merely function as a shelter for ourselves but becomes a place of comfort for those who know and love us. The peace and stillness we have found spills over to others and contributes to building peace and stillness in the world.
In a Baccalaureate speech at Washington and Jefferson College in 1984, Fred Rogers said,
How many times have you noticed that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life which seem to give the rest extra-special meaning? God specializes in such things.
Fred Rogers
Amid the noise of a large family gathering, my youngest grandson Jack lays his head on my shoulder, a gesture that tells me of his love and trust in me. I am grateful to have lived long enough to know God’s presence shining through quiet, unobtrusive, and seemingly unimportant ordinary moments.
