Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection: Soft Sweet Silence

Florence Haas
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Palo Alto, CA

I treasure those hours in my life when there is silence and I can just be. I have come to love those times in the middle of the night when I’m awake — I try to quiet my mind and just listen to the silence and be in the stillness. The silence of the night is a blessing — a vacation from light, sound and cares of the day. In silence I feel my connection with all being and experience new insights into life, as well as receive inspirations for songs or poems:

Like the dark that holds the stars in place
The silence between notes of a song
The space between lines of a story
The intimate pause in a conversation
Soft sweet silence
Invisible framework of incredible strength
Holds us — feeds us — heals us — teaches us …

For me, water is a great metaphor for the immersion into the inner world. Water is life and life is water. Eighty-five percent of all the planet's inhabitants still reside in the sea as perpetual wanderers, the drifting plankton É Astronomers look for water in other planets because it means that life as we know it could exist there. We speak of oceans of stars, oceans of feelings, drowning in tears, we have dreams of dark waters, being engulfed, swimming free.

I’m drawn to the water at vacation time, maybe because I grew up near the shores of Lake Erie and often went to the beach alone. Also I had the good luck to work one summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole on Cape Cod, which stamped something indelible on me. Now every summer I visit Asilomar by the Sea in Pacific Grove, attending the UU Stebbins summer gathering, and all summer long my mind is in Monterey by the ocean.

While not silent, Stebbins is a retreat from ordinary life. There are no phones or TVs in the rooms and no newspapers are delivered to us. We are free to relax mentally and physically, and focus on nature and the workshops, which are conducive to personal and inner growth. We have ample time and space for meditation as we each see fit. We spend time at the beach and walk along the boardwalks enjoying the natural beauty of Asilomar.

At the ocean, I feel connected to life, the Earth, water, sea, and sky — I feel strong, peaceful, surrounded by love, cleansed, and renewed with life-force energy. I love the sound of the waves and cries of the water-birds, the blue-gray of the sky and blue-gray of the ocean — reminding me of the beautiful blue-gray eyes of my Father, a deep, strong man who loved me without reservation. I become one with the vastness of the ocean, plunging deep into my own thoughts and feelings, allowing what is hidden in my own inner ocean of feelings to surface, and welcome and accept them as messages from the divine or holy and hold them in my heart. I ponder that all life began in the ocean, like mine in my Mother’s womb, developing right under her heart — forever after lulled by the ocean waves and the rhythmic sounds of nature. It is primeval, renewing, healing. Also I’m a swimmer and love being immersed in the beautiful blue of the pool which merges with the blue sky overhead, often have the pool to myself and swim in silence, a moving meditation.

When I’m in touch with nature in silence and in quiet meditation, deep feelings about current issues in my life become clear. With these insights come ideas of actions I need to take for personal needs, and which issues for the common good seem most important to me. There are so many things to do in life, and each of us has only a finite amount of resources, so I need to select which actions to fund, as it were, with my energy, money, and time, and time is not a renewable resource. Don’t we all want to do the best we can with the life we have, and somehow make life better for ourselves, and for others.

Sermon: Out of the Silence by Rev. Kurt Kuhwald