Among the Flowers and Whispering Trees: The Sacred Path to Stillness

One of my earliest recollections as a child of maybe three or four is wandering from my backyard over to the neighbor’s and happily roaming about in Mrs. P.’s flower gardens. It had that classic English cottage design with the differing flower bed shapes, winding paths separated by hedges and retaining walls and vegetable garden. There was always something blooming with contrasting color and form that focused the eye. Scattered throughout were various water fountains and garden gnomes – which I loved to play with and move around (the gnomes that is). Until my mother received a phone call from Mrs. P. who complained that there seemed to be this little wind that would come up and blow her gnomes about. That is when my parents put the fence up and I could only peer through the chain links longingly.  In hindsight Mrs. P’s garden was my first taste of finding a pleasant retreat – a refuge and place of wonder.

As I got older and could venture farther from home, I would run through the surrounding farm pastures during the summer months with our family dog exploring the various streams and watering holes looking for frogs or tadpoles and skipping stones. I would often come home with corn that I had picked in one of the back fields and the one year I found a very large patch of clover that contained not only four leaved clovers, but five and six which I spent many a lazy sunny afternoon daydreaming and combing through. Around the age of twelve I got together with a couple of neighborhood boys and we constructed a small ground fort in one of the field’s hedgerows. I would often go to spend a quiet afternoon reading and to get away from my pesky younger sister until another group of boys discovered the fort and tore it down. I remember feeling deeply disappointed and hurt by their actions.

As a young adult I loved to run and would train for a different half marathon each year. I never liked running on hard pavement sucking in car exhaust and chose instead to run through the forest trails. My knees and lungs continue to thank me for that choice. During my runs I discovered that no two training sessions were ever the same. The leaves are forever changing and the sunlight will find new angles to beam through the branches illuminating the forest floor. The sound of rustling leaves in the wind, birdsong and the occasional scurry of animals made headphones unneeded.  Even on rainy days the forest had an enchanted quality about it as the mist would rise and swirl around the trees. It was during this time that I began to incorporate the discipline of prayer into my training routine and would often find a quiet place in a clearing to rest and pray.

As I have gotten older I have become more cognizant of my continued need for silence, solitude and rest. Jesus himself provided an example of making it a regular practice of taking time out for silence, prayer and alone time - not only before a major life altering event but also throughout his entire ministry. I on the other hand  have found it difficult to incorporate silence and seclusion in my daily routine as life has gotten busier with family and work responsibilities. Unless I am intentional about this practice, it can easily go by the wayside. But I have become increasingly more aware that my quality of life diminishes (I have a tendency towards physical and emotional fatigue) when I am not intentional in spending time with God in contemplative prayer or carving out space to get adequate rest. 

The need for more silence, solitude and rest, where I can meet God through prayer and reading scripture, is not another chore that I feel that I should be doing but something that I am longing for more and more - much like exercise, fresh-air, sunshine, beautiful flower gardens and enchanted forests. I am also becoming more aware of the Holy Spirit’s enlightening me about the mixed motives I have between Kingdom values and those of the circus world– my service to others and my need to be spiritually fed. I feel that because I have been cultivating the practices of silence, prayer and solitude most of my life the Mary and Martha parts of me are gradually being united and I see that the relationship that I continue to develop with God is foundational to how I move through this space/time world in relationship to others. Reflecting back on this practice of connecting with nature and finding time to be still before God I can see two key indicators that I have grown spiritually. I have begun to refrain more from participating in the world’s compulsion that believes busyness is equated with productivity and taking the best possible care of myself by getting adequate amounts of rest honors God and how he created me.