Dear Group Leaders and Friends in Christian Meditation,
Lately I have found myself to be a curmudgeon. That may be the strangest way to describe oneself in a letter, meant to invite people to a deeper reflection on meditation and to delve deeper into the practice of silence, stillness, and simplicity yet lately I have been noticing my own reaction to the amount of artificial sound in our world. I was thinking of Main Street in my hometown of Midland which has music playing from speakers all the time as people go to restaurants, shops or to the local pubs. I noticed this the other day, as I was picking up lunch from a deli. The serenade of artificiality. I was having a conversation about this with a friend recently who reminded me that even as we fuel up our vehicles at gas stations, we have video and the sounds of sales barraging us. As she and I were driving and thinking about the television fuel pumps, I found myself even more curmudgeonly. Silence is sacred but sounds sell.
Earlier this month, I went to Niagara Falls with my best friend. It is a place of natural beauty and up the hill from the park-like falls, there is the wildest carnival atmosphere. Talk about duality. Maybe this is an image of the lives of many of us. Life can be chaotic and loud, but our soul seeks silence. As the Psalmist has written: “For God alone my soul waits in silence…” (62:1). In the hotel, near our room was the best sign ever: “Peace & Quiet: Please help us to make the hotel comfortable for all guests by minimizing noise from 10PM to 7AM.” I like the idea that we are invited to make our common home more comfortable by helping each other to cultivate needed silence. Sound might sell but silence heals. Silence can show us who we are in the eyes of our God, that we are each God’s beloved child.
Silence reminds us of who we are and whose we are. Kim Nataraja, one of our teachers in the World Community for Christian Meditation put it this way: “Meditation is discovering your true nature: you are part of the all-embracing, interconnecting web of life; the Divine is in us and amongst us, if only we become silent enough to hear the sound of the Soundless, the name of the Nameless.” Silence shows us the way that we are all interconnected in not just our nation but with our earthly family with one God who is love itself.
As I mentioned in the May letter to you, some of us in our Christian Meditation community here in the United States and elsewhere have been considering the question, “What hope does contemplative Christianity offer the world today?” It seems that whatever wisdom we might be able to contribute to the world in these challenging times flows from our time of silence, stillness and simplicity. There is so much talking and over talking, noise and banging of war drums that silence has been pushed aside and thought of as weakness by many. We, as prayerful people, can bring silence to the conversation that might help each of us to truly listen to others. There is true strength coming from silence that flows into service.
We in the US are hosting the international yearly John Main Seminar, held in-person and virtually in New Harmony, Indiana, USA July 8-13, 2024. Those who attend in person and online will be a gift to the wider community of Christian meditators in our nation and around the world as we all gather to have a conversation in the Spirit. A conversation that flows from the silence of our daily meditation. We will shortly share the fruits of the Seminar with all in our community.
I end this letter not with “curmudgeonly” words but with a word of blessing. May the grace of Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the friendship of the Holy Spirt be with each of us and our world.
Warmly,
Kevin Maksym
