A Word from Pastor Nathan

Dear Friends,

May I brag on you? Your adaptability and willingness to try something new is a gift. We’re four months into using our new worship guides. Each Sunday is unique, but one part that remains constant is our discipline of silence.

Few things in our daily living are silent or quiet. When there is a lack of sound, we sense it as a void, and we seek to fill it with noise because silence, ironically, is disquieting for our souls.

Each Sunday we create a period of silence for sixty seconds. It’s not a long time, but that singular minute can feel like an eternity. Who will make the first move? When will the musician play the introduction to the next hymn?

Frederick Buechner writes, “Silence… holds its breath to listen. It waits and is still.” Buechner tells us that silence is not a vessel to fill but presence.

In the Hebrew Bible, God meets Elijah at Horeb. God says to the prophet, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Elijah didn’t hear the Holy One in the noise but in the aftermath of the loud events; Elijah heard silence. Hymns, prayers, and scripture readings punctuate our worship, and I trust that God is present in those moments. But, what do you hear each Sunday in the discipline of silence? What would happen if we implemented intentional silence into our lives each day?

Thank you for co-creating this hallowed moment in our worship in which God is radically with us. We may not stand on a mountain, but in the silence and stillness of worship and daily living, the Holy One will pass by.

Peace be,

Nathan