It’s been a long time since I’ve managed to post, or to write anything at all for that matter. I would like to say that I have been hiding behind the endless mountains of unfolded laundry or the dishes stacked in the sink, or that the work of being up with sick children night after night has kept me from my computer. But that’s not really it, not really the whole story.
The truth is that life has left me speechless, as of late. When I last wrote my dear friend Rachel’s sister Resa had just been admitted to the ICU with H1N1 and pneumonia. I did not know then that Resa would die. Nor did I imagine that Rachel would invite me to go with her into Resa’s hospital room. I did not understand how much her room would shush me, how much I would feel like I was entering the holy of holies as I touched her warm hand and prayed with Rachel there.
After Resa’s death I returned to Hawaii with a heavy heart and was immediately hit with a series of soul-stretching challenges. I will not detail them all here, but I can only say with C.S. Lewis that “Experience is a brutal teacher…but you learn, by God, you learn.” So we are learning, and growing, but oh my, it hurts. It has been hard to find words to express all of this. In some ways, I haven’t even wanted words. What I have longed for, more than anything, is silence.
So in the mornings, especially, but sometimes even in the afternoons, I escape to my perch on the front lanai. I sit with a cup of tea and try to take it all in. I can’t say what I do is exactly prayer, although there is certainly some of that. Mostly, I just sit and listen: to the wild turkeys gobbling, the roosters crowing, a cow mooing, and the plunk, plunk, plunk, of ripe coffee cherries dropping into huge plastic buckets.
I have not fully understood why I need so much sitting time these days, but today, as I was listening to “Approaching Prayer” on NPR’s Speaking of Faith, I heard a lovely poem that helped me understand, at least in part, what I was trying to do with all that silence. I was sorting.
What is silence?
Silence speaks, the contemplatives say.
But really, I think, silence sorts.
An ordering instinct sends people into the hush where
the voice can be heard.
This is the sorting intelligence of poetry, marked by the unbroken certainty of rhythm, perfect pitch, the placing of things in right order
as in metrical form.
Not rigid categories, but the recognition of a shape always there
but ordinarily obscured by — by what?
By noise, which is ourselves trying to do the sorting in an order that may be a heroic effort but is bound to be a fantasy.
– From Patricia Hampl’s book Virgin Time.
amber
5
Oh my greatest longing this morning is to sit on the lanai with you and listen too. I love noisy silence.
And the concept of “sorting” makes perfect sense. It’s what I think of as processing, the cursor of my mind going round and round. I may look like I’m “frozen” but I’m doing hard work.
I love you and I’m so glad you posted here.
Julia
5
I’ve been waiting for your next blog post! I completely understand how sometimes writing isn’t the needed thing and that the data of life coming at you is just too much to organize into a blog post. These stretches happen to me all the time lately and I get stuck. Life is taking me into deeper places but I am less able to write about it because writing is a form of sorting, and it’s too much to sort. But then I just zone out into the chatty miasma of facebook and the data never gets sorted but gets displaced by trivial information that also vies for my mind’s organizing attention. I really love this insight about silence helping to do this sorting. I think I’m beginning to understand that this Lent.
Hey– I hope you’re ok. I just saw the headlines about the possible tsunami in the pacific.
Molly Sabourin
5
Jenny,
Thank you for sharing this. You have indeed had a lot to absorb these past few months. I have always considered you an especially wise writer – one very much in tune with the fluctuating rhythms of your life – one obedient to your soul’s need for both quiet and expression. That poem is lovely (very Lenten, even), as is this post. It is so nice to hear (read) your “voice” again!
Much love,
Molly
jenny
5
Julia & Molly,
Thanks so much for your kind words! It feels so good to break the ice and write again. I have been inspired by the beautiful experience you both are creating through your own blogs. I think that poetry Wednesday is going to help me to get more of a routine going…I totally love the concept of sharing poetry with friends!
jenny
5
Amber,
I had a feeling you would totally “get” the concept of sorting. I was so amazed by that poem, because I’d never understood exactly what I was doing out there or why I was drawn to that quiet place. I love the idea that silence sorts. If you were there with me, on the lanai, we could sort together. Friendship sorts, too…