Inaction sometimes is the greatest action we can take. Stillness is sometimes the most important move we can make.
—Charles Lattimore Howard, Pond River Ocean Rain
Howard Thurman (1899–1981) offers instructions for practicing stillness and silent meditation:
We must find sources of strength and renewal for our own spirits, lest we perish…. It is very much in order to make certain concrete suggestions in this regard. First, we must learn to be quiet, to settle down in one spot for a spell. Sometime during each day, everything should stop and the art of being still must be practiced. For some temperaments, it will not be easy because the entire nervous system and body have been geared over the years to activity, to overt and tense functions. Nevertheless, the art of being still must be practiced until development and habit are sure. If possible, find a comfortable chair or quiet spot where one may engage in nothing. There is no reading of a book or a paper, no thinking of the next course of action, no rejecting of remote or immediate mistakes of the past, no talk. One is engaged in doing nothing at all except being still. At first one may get drowsy and actually go to sleep. The time will come, however, when one may be quiet for a spell without drowsiness, but with a quality of creative lassitude that makes for renewal of mind and body. Such periods may be snatched from the greedy demands of one’s day’s work; they may be islanded in a sea of other human beings; they may come only at the end of the day, or in the quiet hush of the early morning. We must, each one of us, find [our] own time and develop [our] own peculiar art of being quiet. [1]
Chaplain Charles Lattimore Howard shares the importance of stillness in his faith journey:
Being still has been a necessary part of my walk. Stillness, I should add, is not for me the same as emptiness. While the waters of the pond might be still on the surface, there is much life moving within. Life is within. Love is within!
When I am still I do not empty myself. I would rather be filled with love than have nothing within. And being still allows for this to happen, or rather being still allows for you and I to notice that this has happened already. The love is there within us, even now. Yet sometimes the waves of life rage so incessantly that it is difficult to see or feel that love.
Pausing and being still enough to notice love within and around is a deeply powerful and countercultural act…. In the case of most of contemporary society, stillness is a prophetic act, defying that which demands that we move quickly and move upward. It challenges the notion that it is better to be busy and occupied. It refuses the call to be constantly distracted and perpetually plugged in. [2]
References:
[1] Howard Thurman, Deep Is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness (Friends United Press, 1978), 175–176.
[2] Charles Lattimore Howard, Pond River Ocean Rain: Find Peace in the Storms of Life (Abingdon Press, 2016), 6–7.
Image credit and inspiration: Exisbati, Untitled (detail), 2021, photo, India, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Silence invites us to attend deeply to the present moment, like a hand extended in a field, aware of each blade of grass sliding over the skin, simply being here now.
Story from Our Community:
I’ve struggled with my name for most of my life: Grace. Today’s meditation was a dart to the heart—a reminder of things I’ve experienced fleetingly and too often forgot: “The only prerequisite for receiving the next grace is having received the previous one.” Now, at 80, I find myself experiencing wave upon wave of gifts: spiritual growth, beauty, pain, awe, joy, and unknowingness. I’m learning to receive them all. This is heady and heartful stuff, humbling and amazing. Yes, grace (and Grace!) is amazing.
—Grace R.
