pull up a chair

a meditation on the quiet way…

i begin with a poem that took my breath away. 

Nativity
by Kenneth Steven 

When the miracle happened it was not
with bright light or fire—
but a farm door with the thick smell of sheep
and a wind tugging at the shutters.

There was no sign the world had changed for ever
or that God had taken place;
just a child crying softly in a corner,
and the door open, for those who came to find.

and i couple that with this line from TS Eliot’s “East Coker”:

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

the message is so countercultural: be humble; in quiet, come. “a farm door with the thick smell of sheep / and a wind tugging at the shutters / … just a child crying softly in a corner / and the door open …” a more earthly, rough-sawn tableau it might be hard to conjure. it is a tableau that aims only to find its place in the quiet folds of the depths of a pitch-black night. it begs not for attention. but its aim is a fiery transformation, a redefinition of love, love made flesh, love lived through every breath.

the sufi mystics take it even further. purity of heart, they teach us, is when the I pronoun dissipates in the sun in the way of early morning fog: not disappearing but becoming translucent; it melts away. 

the highest level of holiness in Islam is Iḥsān, defined as “spiritual excellence,” and Omid Safi, the Islamic scholar who mesmerized me this week, teaches that without gentleness, without kindness, there is no loveliness. and loveliness is the divine attribute that defines and permeates Iḥsān. to live in loveliness, in selfless purity of heart, is to summit the holy mountain.   

according to Islamic teaching, when the angel Gabriel asked The Prophet to define Iḥsān, or spiritual excellence, The Prophet answered: “Excellence is to worship Allah as if you see Him, for though you do not see Him, He surely sees you.” (translation from Muslim Ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Qushayrī)

and what do i, a simple soul of 66 whose spiritual life was put to the fire in the wake of a springtime diagnosis, what do i take all this to mean? to live a quiet life, aspiring to be pure of heart, meaning to exercise my every breath toward tender, gentle loving. learning to allow my I to dissipate into the morning fog. to turn the other cheek, yes. always. to exorcise the hurtful impulse. to love through my last breath. 

** you might want to know more about kenneth steven. and wasn’t i surprised/not surprised to discover he’s a poet with the celtic flowing richly through his veins. this morsel from his website might find you curling up with him on an otherwise chilly winter’s afternoon, one in which the ashen sky stirs you to tuck yourself beneath the contours of a fuzzy afghan that tickles your nose:

“Kenneth Steven is first and always a poet. To survive as a literary author he’s had to become many other things as a writer – he translated the Norwegian novel The Half Brother, he’s a children’s picture book and story writer, he’s an essayist and a feature writer – but it’s poetry and the love of poetry that lies at the heart of it all. His volume of selected poems Iona appeared from Paraclete Press in the States a couple of years ago. His numerous collections have sold many thousands of copies, and he has a strong name as a poet thanks to the poetry-related features he’s written and presented over long years: his programme ‘A Requiem for St Kilda’ having won a Sony Gold for Radio 4.

“His poetry has been inspired primarily by place. He grew up on the edge of the Scottish Highlands with a profound awareness of that world: his mother’s people were Gaelic speakers from Wester and Easter Ross. It’s the wildscape of Highland Scotland that pours through his pen.”

where did you find quiet this week?

hanukkah began last night, and at our house our skinny candles were shimmied into and kindled in the noah’s ark menorah first unwrapped when our firstborn was but a few months old. all these years––thirty now––giraffe and bear and walrus have done their part in carrying our thoughts to the miracles of light that flickers even in the darkest darkness. even in a year such as this when bombs rock the holy land.