I
don’t remember how old I was, only that I was very small.
I
lived in Nevada City, in northern California with my parents. People who live
very close to what is known as a tourist attraction seldom see them. We were
getting ready to move to the southern part of the state, and my parents wanted
to visit the Sequoia Forrest one more time.
We
walked the ancient forest of giant trees. At some point, my parents stopped to
admire a particularly large tree, and I kept walking. Suddenly I just
stopped. There was no sound. I don’t
mean that it was still or very quiet, but that there was no sound. No birds
chirped, no leaves rustled, no car sounds; just absolute silence. I was too
little to say what I felt, but I remember. I felt awe. I
felt what Moses must have felt at the Burning Bush. I felt the presence of God.
I
remember my parents coming to me and asking what was wrong. Evidently I was
just standing there sobbing. I could only tell them that I heard God.
Life
happened. My parents divorced. My mom died. I was sent to live with relatives
in Pennsylvania. I survived many troubled years. I married and had children. I
divorced, and stood beside a bed as my youngest child died. I entered a dark
place; a place that I pray that those that I love never see. I came out of that
place to a new life where there was and continues to be light and goodness.
For
reasons that I have never even tried to understand, I have been compelled to
search the scriptures. As I have discovered my own quiet place, I am even more
sure that I stood in the presence of God.
Elijah
had just stood and with the help of God, prevailed against the priests of Baal,
but he was still afraid and confused. An angel sent him to a high place and
told him to wait, that the Lord was about to pass by. He went and stood on the
mountain and there a mighty wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and
rocks, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, but the
Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in
the fire. Then The Bible says, “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. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What
are you doing here, Elijah?””(I Kings 19:11-12 - The New Oxford Annotated Bible
with the Apocrypha-Augmented Third Edition)
Some
time later, I read Habakkuk, and again, found the silence. Habakkuk was a
Hebrew prophet who is believed to have lived in the late part of the seventh
century, BC. The first two chapters of Habakkuk could have been copied from
this morning’s newspaper. He talks about cities and nations who destroy without
mercy. He talks about those who ‘load yourselves with goods taken in Pledge’,
and “Will not your own creditors suddenly rise and those who make you tremble
wake up?” After telling his people what they are bringing on themselves, he
just stops and says, “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth
keep silence before him!”(Habakkuk 2:20)
No
sermon here today, just a little comment on the first time I knew that there
was truly a God, in the silence of an ancient forest. The real joy has been
learning to bring that silent place to my own soul.
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