Always Present

This morning I found myself in the midst of a quiet time which was not quiet.  Before the members of the household in which I was visiting made it to the kitchen, I found my way to a rocker on the second floor front porch.  It overlooked a busy urban street filled with fat squirrels, serious joggers, speeding bicycles, and an occasional delivery truck. Just beyond my line of vision, but not beyond my ability to hear, was a busy expressway making such a constant roar that I named it "The Beast."   

Obviously, it was different from my mornings at the farm where the sun rises so quietly that you can hardly hear the sounds of a new day beginning and when they are heard, it is a soft gentle sound which unfolds in the silence instead of crashing down like some roaring beast.  Despite all the differences and my first thoughts about how hard it was going to be to experience holy presence in such a strange and noisy environment, it was one of the best quiet moments I have known in some time.  As I said the last words of prayers, I heard a voice from within me reminding me that the Holy One is present in all places and that quietness and stillness is really more of the heart than of the ears.  

Two Words stood out in my later moments of remembering and reflection,  The first comes from Jeremiah 23:23-24:  "Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off?  Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord.  Do I not fill  heaven and earth? says the Lord."  The second is from a more familiar place, the 139th Psalm:  "Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven...if I make my bed in Sheol...if I take the wings of the morning...even there Your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast."  (Psalm 139:7-10)  How comforting it is to know that if we are in the land of the roaring beast, or in the land of the unfolding silence, the God who loves us is with us.