Be Still

Many years ago, a dear friend of mine took and shook my soul while we were on vacation together. She started to speak and because of the nature of my love for her, every word out of her captivated me. There I stood, hanging on to every word wondering what she would speak next, and she took me into a meditative trance almost instantaneously. She was sharing a spiritual awareness she was experiencing and without interruption or hesitation she spoke the following:
“Be still and know that I am God..
Be still and know that I am..
Be still and know that I...
Be still and know that…
Be still and know…
Be still and..
Be still..
Be.”

She spoke each line slowly, but without complete pause, to where I found myself for just maybe 30 seconds, in total and complete silence and stillness within me and connected to her and the life all around us. It had been years since I had felt that connected to myself and it was the very moment that stood out to me as the beginning of a new life. It, by no means, immediately healed or helped me escape the hell I had created inside and outside of me, but it reminded me that, if even for a few seconds, I hadn’t lost the capacity to connect and feel close to God and another person.

It has taken years for me to really grasp the power in that meditation, with each line calling out a distinct thought, pause, and reverence. As we can see with this meditation, before we get down to the most basic and simple statement: “be,” we are called to “be still.” Every human being, no matter how distracted, confused, or empty has what I believe is an eternal longing to just “be.” We have such frail, human ways to cry out for this-we beg our family or partners to just “love us as we are.” We spend much of our lives seeking and trying and praying to be accepted and “enough.”

Yet, what I believe is one of the most critical things we can do for ourselves-in order to heal, to awaken, to live fully-is to be still. It is in the stillness that we hear ourselves, but also that we can hear God. It is not enough to just be physically still. We must find ways to come into the reverent silence that cultural and religious noise often drowns out. In our darkest moments, in our weakest days, we can instantaneously embrace the sacred stillness that aches to be heard and known.

Our calm is only but a few slow breaths away, only but a half an hour of going within to honor our spirit’s calling…it doesn’t take much. We often blame our lack of intimacy with ourselves on not having enough time. I can assure you that once you have the taste of stillness and all the gifts it has to offer, you may find yourself saying you don’t have time for that television show, because you need to be still, instead.

I challenge you to be still...in order to find your soul’s deepest longing, to simply “be.”