I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for PattiJoy’s reflection and poems Introduction to Stillness.
The poems in my Book of Hours trace the subtle movements of the day — not by clock or ritual, but by breath, presence, and the shifting of light across the natural world. I call these Hours Before Dawn, Early Morning, Night Watch, and First Light, for they mark the soul’s quiet thresholds. Stillness belongs among them as a meditation on the ways nature teaches without effort: moonlight, fireflies, the stirring of the unseen, and the gentle unfolding of dawn. It is a contemplative pause within the larger rhythm of the Hours.
Stillness
“In the stillness of quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.”
-Howard Thurman
Stillness
the interplay of darkness and light
Beyond space and time,
The moon’s silvery shadow
gently blankets the landscape,
bestowing a tranquil stillness.
Lightning zags across the sky,
awakening the night's silence.
Stillness
Returns on the tail of a firefly
synchronous compassion
uniting male and female
high in the Smoky Mountains.
A synchronized light show
of flashing patterns braided
in the beauty of stillness
Stillness
In the middle of the night
An Unknown Presences stirs
Awakening the soul,
Into transformation
Dreams rise like lanterns,
inviting you to see.
Stillness
Unfolds with dawn
filling the body with
quiet and inner peace.
Listen to the whispers
as leaves move gently in the breeze
birds greet the day with soft songs
as darkness turn to light
and stillness embraces in a noisy world
Breathe in Stillness
Exhale peace
Poetry has been PattiJoy’s lifelong companion, arriving unannounced — in dreams, in birdsong, in the soft rhythm of walking her dog Phoebe, or in the simple act of cooking. Since she was fourteen, words have come to her like visitors, asking to be written.
Her path has woven through years of service with the Episcopal Church in Southeast Florida and later as director of a mission agency in Sewanee, Tennessee. After her husband’s death, she moved to Maryville, where the mountains and morning light have opened a new chapter. Here, she finally has the spaciousness to live her own Book of Hours — writing, painting, singing, and dancing in the quiet companionship of the unseen.
