A Word From Pastor

From the Northwest Corner of the First Floor

Do you remember going fishing with your parents or grandparents? What happens these days when you take your kids fishing? What is the refrain to this song? BE QUIET – You’re scaring the fish! And no matter what you did or no matter what your kids do – it is noisy. Getting a sinker out of a tackle box tray, unwrapping a Twinkie, it doesn’t matter, three miles away people are wondering what the racket is. Invariably (or in Wisconsin) the floor of the boat was uncarpeted and whatever was dropped on that aluminum hull made an earsplitting rattle. How could there possibly be a fish left at this end of the lake? Silence.

Same for hunting. Whispers became roars. Slipping the safety off ? KA-LICK. Opening the Velcro™ tab on a pocket? Why don’t we just set off a string of firecrackers while we’re at it. All of God’s Woodland Creatures Great and Wee have joined the fish up at the other end of the lake and there is no point in continuing. Silence.

Have you ever taken time to note just how noisy your world is? Noise is absolutely invasive and abusive. My goodness, what if it was absolutely deafening at, say, a football stadium – in a city on the end of the Mississippi – or in a stadium in a city on the beginning of the Mississippi? I bet it would be hard to communicate. Seriously, when we stop to listen, how often do we find silence? Are we comfortable in silence? Maybe not so much? How many of us have a radio or some sort of music going while we’re doing our daily tasks? How many stores have music going in the background? Elevators, why? As I write this I have music playing. When I would come home on Leave from Philadelphia to silent northern Minnesota I couldn’t sleep because it was too quiet.

Lent is just around the corner. Lent is a good time for silence. Being silent, enduring silence, remaining silent is a good discipline for Lent. It is a good discipline for Christians in general, for any Liturgical (vs. fishing or hunting) season. Then it is just us and God. And the scary part is: we might hear God. God may have something to say to us. And then we have to do it. Or at least, let it sit on our shoulder or in our belly until we move accordingly.

When you were in the boat or blind or stand or on the stump, did you notice after you were finally quiet how many little wonderful things you heard? The slosh of white caps, water catching against the lapstrakes, maybe even two blades of grass rubbing together, wind susurating through the trees or across meadow grasses, the riffle of a bass slurping some poor insect off the surface, a conversation in a nearby boat can all be heard when we settle down, when we find, when we establish …… silence.

During Lent get yourself settled down and establish some silence in a silent place. Then listen. For God. Maybe you will hear what God has for you – a journey, a person, a place, a revelation. Maybe you will hear that what God has for you is Peace. Maybe there will simply be Rest or Refuge.

In the Psalms it says we are led beside the still waters, we’re told to be still and know that I am God; and be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

One more Psalm passage:

^62:1 For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. ² He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

It is Lent. Be silent. Find again who your God really is.

Pastor Paul Simmons