I recall an evening when a Blue-tailed bee-eater arrived on a cable with its chirps and remained silent in its perch. A short while after, following a bird call, another one joined it. I waited to see how they communicated to each other. They turned towards each other and chirped almost inaudibly. The look and the whispering chirps surprised me how two birds communicate their feelings of nearness and pleasure of togetherness.
The voice of gentle whispering chirps seemed to overflow from within from the appearance of the attending look!
This was a moment of an awareness of how courtship begins for some birds. They sing to each other and stay present to each other silently! The bird calls and the silent pauses become their language of communication.
To be silent needs an inner discipline. We often feel present to ourselves only when we hear our voice or engage in seeing something that we can think about.
But interior silence is beyond this.
It is when we close our eyes and stay quiet even without thoughts, the fullness of silence stills us to sense the largeness of space within us. The inner space is what guides us to feel the true self we are! We are more than our thoughts, sights we can see and interpret, or actions we perform through which others attribute us significance.
We are a being more than all our doings!
This is the mystery of our being that we are.
The writer of the 139 Psalm, in the Bible came to a personal awareness of this mystery of his being: 'Thou did form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works and my souls knows it well' (v 13,14, ASV).
This journey inward in quietude is the way open to us to feel secure in the true self, hidden within, in the sanctuary of our inmost being. This shall reduce the need to make the visible expression of our life as our identity. Our identity is beyond our body and the stature our qualifications shall bring to us.
We live in a fashion conscious world which pushes us to dress ourselves to draw attention of others, live in houses which stand out, move about in luxurious cars and behave in indulgent ways to impose our prominence. We live under the compulsion of these popular myths.
I felt moved, as the two birds treasured each other's presence in silence. I felt that silence, when it is solemn and sacred, brings larger meaning than all the loud proclamations that humans attempt to make through their social presence.
I wondered if we pursue falsehood- seeking for social presence without experiencing the fullness of intimate presence to ourselves in the silent interior of our lives! What abides in the silent interior is this consciousness of a God, present within to make us feel loved and anchored!
It is only as much as humans make this voyage inward and find the treasure of a waiting God in our inner self to give us our identity of being 'the beloved of God', our striving to be someone else of our imagination shall cease.
In a hymn by an unknown author, referred to this metanoia, a new consciousness:
"O Lord, all the world belongs to you;
And you're making all things new,
What is wrong you forgive
And the new life you give
Is what's turning the world upside-down.
The world's only loving to its friends;
But your way loving never ends,
Loving enemies too,
And this loving with you
Is what's turning the world upside-down.
The world lived divided and apart;
You draw all together, and we start
In your body to see
That in fellowship we
Can be turning the world upside-down...."
The joy of being at home with ourselves in our inner sanctuary for which we have been formed, is the destiny we shall truly seek for ourselves! To be people of loving and forgiving disposition is the true mark of our being!
The humans are 'beings'- formed in love, nurtured in love and called to live loving, forgiving and serving!
I felt good that that a pair of Blue-tailed bee-eater brought this message of inwardness which they communicated in silence between themselves!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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