i was on an evening flight the other night, a pretty full flight, but generous in that most of the center seats were empty. there was a cradled hush about the space, a quiet unhurried feeling that i don’t usually associate with travel.

there’s something about flights, soaring imperceptibly across vast spaces that prompts deep stillness–and i felt that we were all embraced, held so presently, peacefully in a nowness of grace.

i had thought i’d watch a movie, but instead found myself flooded with insights, questions that prompted more insights, a soaring, hovering, deep submergence in, and influx of ideas. pure heaven.

often i’ve struggled with contained spaces, but i’m always struck by how expansion of thought, inspiration has the capacity to dispell the seeming confines of space and time.

the woman sitting in the window seat didn’t say much, but it was as if there was an understanding between us, a sweet solitude of appreciation, prayer, kindness, love. it was unspoken but poignant, tangible.

it is in stillness that we measure peace–its vast stores have a way of filling canyons of emptiness, sweeping life into dormant hearts. and it is in stillness that we begin to glean the great and all-permeating presence of God.

Dixie Chicks’ song “Easy Silence” captures this spirit: 

I come to find a refuge in the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay

i’m profoundly grateful that all the world’s clamor and chatter cannot quench or quell the grace and presence of spiritual truth, light: the present impetus of God’s infinite all, holding us clear, pure, unstained, loved and safe.

Psalm 46 says “He uttered His voice, the earth melted…Be still and know that I am God.”

Mary Baker Eddy writes: “My sense of nature’s rich glooms is, that loneness lacks but one charm to make it half divine–a friend, with whom to whisper, “Solitude is sweet.”

Here’s to seen and unseen friends who nourish us in stillness–the heaven and holiness of the Holy Spirit, illuming and lightening even the darkest of places.