Quiet Earth

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10

Stillness is more audible than any sound, not tinny like so many sounds I hear these days.

The silence is full and rich, insistent . . . demanding that I listen and suggesting always that I'd be foolish not to. Only fools refuse the counsel of the wise, and this silence seems to know everything. It seems I've been a prodigal, traipsing along behind the band just like a thoughtless gypsy anywhere the living was easy, stealing morsels when I could have had the loaf.

Maybe it's the oaks and beeches. These oaks have housed a thousand generations of owls and jays, and have withstood abuse from countless woodpeckers and people. They've seen the fleet-footed native child tossing pebbles at their roots and chasing little fawns around between them. They've stood and heard the council casting lots for war or peace while fragrant pipe smoke wafted through their branches.

Perhaps it is the brook, whispering of its secret travels, nurturing the earth along its way, or maybe it's the earth, the pregnant fertile earth, pulling me like influential kin back to my moorings and my heritage.

The earth is calling me home to the simple and eternal things. It persistently calls em to reject the glitter of the transient and return to Father's house.

The silence-a voice asking one pointed and unavoidable question: Will I return and inherit the earth? And here in the silence, the only sound to be heard is the whisper of my own answer.

By Gloria Gaither, taken from "Women's Devotional Bible 2"