Listen to the Silence

By Ken Canedo

Good morning. As I type this it is 5:30am on Sunday and I'm up this early because I need to leave soon to play piano at my parish's 8:00am liturgy. Yes, I live near the parish and I really don't need to be there until 7:30 to rehearse with the cantor. Although in my youth I used to stay in bed until the last possible minute before going to school, I actually revel now in waking up before the rest of my world does. It's dark, it's quiet, and the whole neighborhood is cold and still.

Listen to the silence! Forget turning on the TV or plugging in the iPod. Just listen to the stillness of the morning as the sun starts to peek over the horizon. Isn't that silence golden?

What's that, you say? I'm crazy? Get back to bed? Well, I admit I am tempted to just slump back on the couch and catch a few more winks, but now that I'm up I can't resist the voice of God calling out to me in the silence. Try it some time. Really!

The voice of God? Here's a poem I wrote that appears uncredited in Spirit & Song 2, right after the song Sacred Silence (#334).

Be Still

I searched for God
in my avalanche of
emails and voicemails,
IMs, CDs, TVs and MP3s,
but the Lord was not in the electronics.

I searched for God
in the drone of endless conversations
that permeate the hurried pace of
my daily routine,
but the Lord was not in the clatter.

I could not find the Lord,
though I searched in vain
through all that surrounds me!

And then, I heard a gentle voice.
"Be still."

There, within the silence
of my own inner peace.

I found God.