Stillness

Stillness is one of those funny deals that we through around with great respect to the idea but little adherence to the practice. Be still and know. Be still and listen. Be still and . . . oh look!

It is hard to be still and more so when it seems so unrewarding. But that is the problem We expect something out of stillness, and we are so busy waiting, looking, waiting patiently for that something, breath baited and eyes pealed, that we miss it. We miss everything.

My stillness today was a little atypical. I was attempting to send a text message. This is quite difficult for me. Really, quite difficult. I like to write somewhat correctly. Blatant misspellings are not acceptable (blatant meaning that I notice it). Besides, I wasn't too focused. I would stop and space into the distance. I was out walking for walking, for air, for it is my last day in Grand Rapids until it is time to come back.

Believe it or not, I was being still. Texting does not seem very still, not to those who watch those crack fingers punching keys at 200 words per minute and not to myself or others who labor over each letter, but this was stillness in some strange way. My mind was not whirling. It wasn't focused on much of anything. I was just breathing. Being. A funny concept, I know.

Anyway, amidst that, amidst that still moment after running from office to office tracking down professors and trying to hold myself together, two people popped into the moment, one right after another, two gals from the Spring Semester in Spain. They were both on the phone but they both took a moment to say hi, give a hug, and offer their prayers as I head home for the fall.

Had I not set myself down to breathe, attempted to send a text without much focus, had I not mistakenly slipped into stillness, I would not have seen either of these women who have a gift of sending out sunshine to whomsoever they encounter.

That is the point of stillness--when one is still, one is not expecting, one is vulnerable to the unknown . . . and the gems of stillness, of that unknown, are best seen in reflection.