Practicing Presence

when a writer gives up on words (archival post from Jan 2018)

This has been a week for listening to the heartbeat of the world. I've found myself more drawn to silence, more drawn to sitting still and taking in the world as it presents itself: life asking to be noticed in a small, quiet voice.

It hasn't paraded into my consciousness with fanfare and demanded attention. (There's enough of that already, and we all know the strategy works.)

Japanese Friendship Garden, photo credit: Laura McCorry

These are some of the moments that have stopped me in my tracks:

• My daughter in pajamas stacking blocks as high as she can into a tower just before her bedtime.

• The sound of my friend's voice who tells me that in the middle of the night, she will ask her husband who recently died to go comfort their baby. 

• The late afternoon sunlight illuminating a hand-brocaded Indian elephant tapestry, how I see for the first time that it has sparkling gold threads.

• The way my grandmother’s voice comes back to me in dreams 

There is so much pain and suffering in the world. There is so much beauty and kindness. Very often, we only have words to offer each other. But words can only travel so far—it's difficult for them to penetrate deep into another's heart.

You don't need to meditate on a mountaintop for years to learn that sometimes silence cannot be improved with words. What can we offer each other when there are no words? Only presence. Only prayer, which in my understanding, is presence offered at a distance.

There is a deep, listening kind of presence that passes directly into understanding and empathy. We're not very practiced, as a society, at offering this type of comfort.

But you can practice feeling it for yourself. Listen to the whisper of the world, asking to be noticed. Sit in silence. Breathe. You are here. You matter. However this letter finds you, I wish you deep peace as you begin this new week.

xo,
Laura