(c) Eva Marie Everson
God speaks to us through our lives, we often too easily say. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what
that meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of night, and even then it is a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.
~Frederick Buechner
I have discovered several ways to walk a labyrinth, but the one I fixed myself to was the one found in the Blue Lake flyer:
The Path of Silence.
The Path of Memory.
The Path of Prayer.
The Path of Questioning.
However, what worked best for me was switching the last two so the Path of Questioning came before The Path of Prayer. I found I need first to have silence … then contemplation over the past twenty-four hours … followed by conversation with God where He asks the questions and I answer … and then a time of quieting prayer. This pattern has allowed me to begin and end with the peacefulness of hush.
I also found that I needed an actual labyrinth. I thought about having my husband build one in our backyard, but I live in Florida and the idea of a snake coming across one of my paths (not to mention the heat index) knocked that idea right out of my head. Then I thought, hey! We live in a cul-de-sac with a tree in the center of the loop. I could simply walk around the tree x-number of times per path …
With that, two thoughts came to mind: 1) the heat (again), and 2) I could see our neighbors calling the authorities somewhere close to the time I hit the fourth lap. “We don’t know, Officer,” they’d say.
“She hardly ever comes out of her home, and now every morning there she is walking around and around a tree. Her mouth moves, but not a word comes out. We think you should send someone right
over.”
Laugh, if you will, but that is exactly what I thought. And what I penned in my journal. And then the thought struck me with such assuredness I would have sworn I’d always known it. I wrote: Well then, why can’t I journal the labyrinth? No good reason in the world why not—at least none that I can think of.
Quiet. No snakes. No heat. No neighbors. Just God and me. A journal and a pen.
And so it began.
The Path of Silence
How do you define silence? Total quiet? Or would silence, for you, mean simply turning off the television? Walking away from your phone? Or any other outside source of noise not created by God?
When I began journaling the labyrinth, I turned the television off, put my phone on silent, and left it in another room. Then I sat alone (save the dog) in our family room. I had my journal open and
in my lap. My pen poised. My eyes closed.
And then I listened.
I soon realized that silence comes in degrees. I have experienced pure silence only once in my life (that I can remember). I had gone with two friends to the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in
northern California, walked between the ancient, giant trees whose thick branches and spiral-arranged leaves all but block out the sky.
A sweet chill wrapped around us as we walked deeper into the ten thousand acres. We were cloaked in the faintest of light. We lifted our faces upward, our eyes searching for the end of what appeared
endless.
Little by little, we separated from one another … not going too far, but finding our own path nonetheless.
After a short while I realized silence surrounded me. I heard absolutely nothing. Not a bird. Not a breeze. Not a rustle of leaves.
Nothing. I took in a slow breath, aware of its sound as if I’d never heard it before, and whispered, “This is your sanctuary.”
But on my first day on the journey of labyrinth journaling, although I sat quietly on the sofa, there wasn’t absolute silence. My dog licked her paws. Outside, birds sang to each other. An automobile drove around the cul-de-sac. The ceiling fan whirred overhead, and the fridge hummed in the nearby kitchen. Not perfect silence, but compared to the normal day-to-day, this was bliss.
Did you know the words LISTEN and SILENT use the same letters? Interesting, no? This leads to another question: how can we truly listen—meaning, to not only hear, but to understand—unless we remain silent enough, long enough to take in what another is saying? Especially when that other is God …
In the days of the Garden—in the days before the crafty serpent talked Adam and Eve into that luscious bite of fruit—God walked and talked in perfect union with His children. He talked. They listened.
They talked. He listened. If we close our eyes and think (quietly) about it long enough, we can almost sense the conversations. We can hear the rustling of palm fronds in the cool evening breeze, the brushing of flesh against foliage as they walked through garden paths, their bare feet stepping along the padding of lush earth. If we sit long enough without stirring, we can make out their laughter as it echoed upward. And if we open our eyes slowly enough, we can see the late afternoon sun glistening off the bronze of their skin.
Every sound—every action—in perfect harmony. There is no discord. Nothing to assault the ears. Even the trumpet of elephants called back by the roar of lions sounds like a perfectly timed melody.
But … a serpent. And a deafening hiss: Did God really say …
From that day on, the cacophony of life has risen to such a fevered pitch, is it any surprise we find it difficult to listen when God speaks?
Have you ever wondered why we are so frightened by silence?
What happens to us during those rare moments of hush that keeps us running from them rather than sprinting to them?
I think I know. Namely, when we are silent, we are required to quieten our mind. To slow our heartbeat to a calmer rhythm. And then, when we have stopped talking and thinking and spinning our own web, we must listen to our own thoughts. Our own fears. Our own questions which are too painful to ask in any other setting. Most of us drown out whatever silence comes our way with any form of noise we can find. Most of us get into our cars and either turn on the radio or hit our Bluetooth to place a phone call (guilty as charged). Most of us walk into the silence of our homes and flip on the television before we do anything else. Not to watch it, but to ensure that sound fills the four corners of not only our homes
but also our lives. Doing these things says: 1) I’m not alone, and 2) as long as I’m hearing something else, I don’t have to listen to the sounds of my mind—the questions or the accusations—or to the whispering voice of God.
Because silence is not the end to the means, but the means to the end. And that’s one end we’re both craving for and terrified of.
Because the idea we could ever find complete outer silence is nearly nonsense (as previously noted), what we must do is find our way to a path of inner silence. The most difficult part in doing this is turning the outside world off. Turn off the television. Turn off the computer. Do not look at your phone to check emails, or Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram for postings or pictures. Forget about Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
Stop. The. Madness. Of social media.
While you’re at it, make sure your phone’s ringtone is off as well. Don’t worry, whoever may call will call you back … or leave a message if what they have to say is important. Is your music playing, albeit on a low volume, somewhere in the back of the house? Take the time to walk back there and turn it off.
Now find a comfortable place. A favorite chair in a favorite room. A porch rocker that sits at the ready and—glory of glories—right in front of a shimmering pond or a grassy knoll or the wide span of the ocean or the height of a mountain or a friendly neighborhood street. If you are a mother with young children running about, grab a time when they are quiet (naps or in another room playing, although I understand you may find it difficult to create full quiet). Wherever … just find a place where you can be … and be in the moment.
Now hush. Listen. Do you hear nature around you? Don’t thin of this as noise. It’s not; it’s nature. It’s God’s whispers. His orchestra playing His symphonies. Take in a few deep breaths and let them ease out of your body. Become aware of who you are. Don’t think of anything. Just be. Just … listen.
If you can do that for one whole minute, you’re off to a great beginning. But even a minute can seem difficult at first because within that span of sixty seconds, our minds—already trained to do so—will shoot off in about a dozen different directions.
Years ago, I spoke at a women’s retreat in the Tennessee mountains where the topic of silence came up in one of my evening presentations. I encouraged the women to close their eyes. To sit in silence for one solid minute without thinking of anything but the glory of God. No shopping lists. No wondering what the kids might be doing. No hoping the husband remembered to transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Just to be within the moment and the moment with God. To think on a verse of Scripture … or their “thankful list.”
“Sixty seconds,” I said, looking at the minute hand on my watch.
“Beginning now.” The room fell quiet. Outside, nature boasted of her goodness. Inside, the rhythm of breathing filled the room. Fifteen seconds had ticked past when I noticed a woman stand near the back
of the room, tiptoe over to the sound system, and—before I could say “don’t”—press a single button. The “click” could be heard three counties away. Almost simultaneously, the eyes of the women opened as a lovely instrumental hymn infiltrated the stillness. A few blinked, then kept their eyes opened and looked around to see what the others were doing. A few closed their eyes again. At the sixty-second mark I asked that someone stop the music.
Then I said, “Was that minute longer than you expected?”
“Yes,” a woman answered from the center of the room. “And it wasn’t exactly silent.”
Some women chuckled, most uncomfortably.
“It’s difficult,” I said, hoping not to upset the one who had ended the experiment without meaning to. “See? We find it difficult to embrace real silence. The music was beautiful … but it didn’t allow you to experience the loveliness of silence.”
Once we learn how to silence the outside world, we must then learn to quiet our mind, which is why we begin at a minute and then move on to two … or five … a half hour, or even longer if you can schedule it. Along the path, you’ll send up tiny whispers to God, then listen for His side of the conversation. This may start by concentrating on a line from a favorite hymn or a particular verse of Scripture or a poignant quotation for meditation (this is what I do when journaling The Path of Silence). The longer you spend there, the longer you will wish to stay. You will soon crave it, looking anxiously forward to it.
Psalm 46:10 begins with these two words: Be still.
Do you know what those words mean? Exactly what they say?
They mean: Stop. Cease. Hush.
And, according to the psalmist, what happens next? … and know that I am God.
There it is. The point and the purpose. But to know Him, we must first … be … still.
We must first … hush.