As it´s the first weekend after exams, we’re having a few days away as a community to close the year together before the diaspora to new communities and summer apostolates. Here I am on the first morning, sitting outside after a late wake up and a refreshingly light Spanish breakfast, with The Sound of Music style mountains in the very near distance, dangling my legs off a little rock wall, breathing in the smell of summer. The first thing that strikes me is the stillness. The hillsides blanketed with thousands of trees and the immenseness of the mountains—even the humming bees and soft breeze—it all speaks stillness. But a moment later I notice the ants scurrying at my feet, a lizard crawling out of a hole by my side, the butterflies flittering in front of me, and the countless birds chirping away. Suddenly I realize how profoundly alive all that stillness is. I can´t even imagine how much life is buzzing, burying, building, blooming, eating, dozing, mating, and growing in the depths of this vast stillness.
Stillness
This is me. There is a vast stillness in my soul that deepens day by day. But since it is stillness, sometimes I can´t hear it, see it, or feel it. Sometimes there is noise which distracts me from its silence. But if I go to that still place inside of me sit in the middle of it, I can see so clearly that it is a stillness that is so profoundly alive.
