CLINCHING OUR QUIET

I find that we often need to Clinch Our Quiet. This simply means to secure, settle, or protect delegated quiet space and to not allow any and every distraction to become more expedient than the quiet and silence. If we do… we may still be sitting but we are usually already far away from quiet and solitude though there is perhaps little noise… we are just gone into our other thoughts. Sometimes we are anxiously waiting for the quiet to be noise so we can get on with our stuff.

Again, we must wait… but not for noise. For what? The word we hope to hear or see or know. Securing silence gives us a chance for this to happen. It reminds me of what George Fox (1624-1691) wrote while searching and waiting in 1647:

“And when all my hopes in [dissenting people] and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, Oh then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,’ and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.” (George Fox, founder of Quakers; Society of Friends)

We clinch our quiet waiting for: ‘I heard a voice which said…” Now we know: ‘and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.’

“He who is of God hears the words of God…” Jesus