I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kelly Sollinger’s reflection and poem on finding silence.
The days leading up to this poem brought one heartbreak after another. I was dealing with personal griefs in the midst of serving as a pastoral presence to a community enduring an impossible loss. Early one morning I fled the house and the phone and the email, desperately seeking an inner silence that eluded me. The longer I walked, the more I became aware of the birds. At first, their songs felt like yet another assault on my search for solitude and silence. Gradually, I was able to hear the Spirit’s gentle whisper: that God is in the noise as much as God is in the profound silence. It helped me begin to see God in the grief. So often we think conditions must be perfect: the silence must be absolute, the solitude complete, the joy overflowing. We miss the lesson of the hawk, who finds God in the very midst of the noise of life.
“silence”
so noisy out here
in the early morning
one bird insists
on her love for you
over and over and over
plaintive and longing
while a flock
insists their praise of you
loud and long
a hawk sits silently
surveying all the sound
bearing witness
that silence
has its own things to say
Kelly Sollinger is a poet, author, teacher, and artist. A Texas native, she currently lives in Ohio with her daughter and three cats. She recently published her first collection of poetry, The Gift of the Dragonfly: Poems of Transformation. Learn more about Kelly and her work at DancingOwlStudio.com.
