Stillness – 14 February 2014

As we know, it is important for Christian Meditation that we are physically as still as possible.  And so we teach stillness… sitting upright but relaxed, feet flat on the floor, hands, arms and shoulders relaxed, our breathing comfortable and regular… and so on.  Having said that, we avoid the impression that this is any kind of law.  Some people are simply unable to be as still as that for 20 to 30 minutes, for various reasons.  There are some unable to sit upright comfortably.  So we do what we can, not what we can’t, and that is always part of the teaching too.  It is a gentle discipline.

The stillness matters because it mirrors and complements our inward stillness and silence.  It is an outward sign of a larger and deeper reality.  And so this week I found myself pondering stillness of the body.  A doctor I had to consult told me I should avoid sudden movements – that’s my kind of doctor.  Stillness is a challenge to all sorts of things in our world.  It certainly challenges the culture of busyness, not because it’s wrong to be busy, but because so much of our culture claims that personal worth, validation, recognition, depend on our doings and our achievements.  To be still for an extended period may indicate that, for now, we don’t need to watch, guard, change our environment – for this period we are accepting things as they are around us.  And that is simply too hard for many people.  First you must secure the environment, the furniture, the light, the temperature, the draughts, the surrounding noises – and then, that having been done, you may be able to consider being still (but still very watchful). 

So our stillness in meditation is, at a deeper level, our sign that we are not looking to control things.  For this period at any rate it is hands-off God’s world and other people.  For this brief period, time and space do not have to meet with my approval.  The stillness is a recognition that we are not omnipotent, nor seeking to control, and we may not even begin to occupy the place which belongs to God. 

Sometimes stillness is physically or mentally hard.  This is a practical issue.  Our nervous system is probably the last part of us that will ever be brought into submission to Christ, it often seems to me.  There are lovely stories about monks who experience problems with their digestive systems and other unmentionable matters.  St Teresa of Avila could make jokes about not very seemly discomforts which disturbed her in prayer.  Henri Nouwen tells of one occasion when he was in agony with his back, but tried to sit still through meditation – realizing eventually that he had made the wrong choice.  Thomas Merton had constant health problems, and he tells in his journal how this affected his stillness.  But God surely reads our longings and our motives and our difficulties, the things we tried to do as well as the things we triumphantly achieved.  The desire to pray is itself prayer.  Meditators very soon learn that nothing stays the same anyway – what is not possible at one time becomes possible at some other time. 

It is important to be still and to learn what we can of stillness.  It spreads into other aspects of our days and years.  Stillness becomes possible when everything and everyone else may seem in turmoil.  Just as Elijah sat at the mouth of the cave, still and waiting, through the earthquake, wind and fire, we may eventually hear what the literal Hebrew of that story calls enigmatically a small voice of stillness.