Lindsay L. O'Connor

“…silence is above all a quality of the heart that can stay with us even in our conversations with others. It is a portable cell that we carry with us wherever we go. From it we speak to those in need and to it we return after our words have borne fruit.”
—The Way of the Heart by Henri J. M. Nouwen

I think about silence most during noisy times. The month of December is anything but quiet in my world as the parent of school-aged children who are involved with all the holiday performances that accompany their extracurricular activities, along with social gatherings and time with extended family.

On one Saturday recently, sandwiched between a Christmas parade that both of my children participated in and an evening holiday performance, I met with someone who works with a local organization that supports our immigrant neighbors. The situation for our beloved immigrant community members is dire as families are separated and people are detained in inhumane conditions. Those closest to the work observe that the rules for detainees and their families, as well as the volunteers who serve them, are often inconsistent and arbitrary, adding to the terror inflicted on vulnerable populations. As I am learning about what that looks like here in Dallas, the weight and gravity of the situation is attached to names, faces, friends, and families.

How can our hearts hold the tension between joyous holiday celebrations and the immeasurable suffering and loss inflicted on our neighbors as these atrocities are carried out right under our noses? As I prayed and considered how to prepare for a ministry of presence last week, I thought about the odd experience of bearing witness to goodness and suffering, beauty and terror, all within the space of a day or an hour or sometimes even simultaneously.

I took a few moments to center myself. The image that emerged in my mind was the sprinkling of freckles that dot my daughter’s nose. Earlier that morning before she got on the school bus, I had gazed upon those darling freckles, savoring the time with her and basking in my deep love and affection for her. I thought of the beauty I’ve noticed lately on my morning walks. I remembered with gratitude a heartwarming few moments spent reconnecting with a friend who had stopped by our house the previous night to drop off homemade tamales.

The phrase “tethering to goodness” presented itself to me while I prayed. While my anxiety would like to prepare for every possible worst case scenario, I wonder whether the preparation that is most needed is tethering to goodness, truth, and beauty. I thought of Nouwen’s idea of silence as a “portable cell that we carry with us wherever we go.” When we are tethered to goodness, which is often easiest to connect with when we slow down and cultivate silence as “a quality of the heart,” we can remain grounded and rooted in love even when the world around us is chaotic and noisy. From that place of rootedness, we become a conduit of love wherever we go, allowing the love that is always available to flow through us in the most difficult circumstances.

When we practice resisting various forms of oppression, we must remember what we are working towards as we participate in love’s restorative work in the world. Tethering to all that is good, true, and beautiful returns us to ourselves, nurturing and sustaining us for the road ahead. Noticing and savoring the ways goodness shows up in our lives provides concrete examples of the goodness we desire and strive to make available to every other person and community, which paints a small part of the picture of the type of beloved community we are working toward co-creating with God and others.

the golden hour

The quiet dark of morning is a reprieve
from the sensory demands of midday.
The fighters and fleers within me settle,
making room for the unexpected
to arrive as potential goodness
instead of probable threat.

Early December shadows stretch
late into the morning,
easing me into a new day
“with no mistakes in it yet,”
as Anne-with-an-e says.
I walk my daughter to the bus stop
while the world is blanketed in fallen leaves,
a softness serving as a buffer
between frigid air and unseen beings
burrowing in the warm earth below.

These daybreak walks—
an unspeakable gift of sacred pause
sandwiched between hurried moments—
remind me to begin with soul-nourishing
ease
beauty
and wonder.

Golden light—
a bit of magic backed by science,
as all the best magic is, eventually—
slants at just the right angle
to gild all that’s within reach.
I don’t remember the light of dawn ever looking
quite so warm-hued and bewitching,
but maybe this is the first time
I’ve paid the attention it was due.
I wonder,
in my efforts to chase the extraordinary
with all the zeal of youth,
how much ordinary magic I missed
before I learned to slow down?

“If it were a snake,
it would’ve bitten you!”
my grandma used to say
when we searched for something
that was right there in front of us,
“as plain as the nose on your face.”

All that remains in the shadows,
as the sun makes a lazy assent,
is laced with frost.
Then the light stretches into the shadows,
transforming intricate white crystals
into a scintillating sea of brilliance.
In the fleeting in-between moment when
sunlight bathes
but the frost has not yet melted,
even the anthills are glamorous,
diamond-encrusted.

Part of the ache of winter
is the memory of other seasons—
the vitality of spring and resurrection,
the heat like a sedative on lazy summer days,
and the beauty of autumn and letting go.
But when I slow down
and adjust my expectations,
I find that winter’s gifts arrive
wrapped in different, subtler packaging
than those from other seasons.

Time and attention,
silence, stillness, and solitude
reveal magic otherwise easily missed.
When I become tethered to this beauty,
this truth,
this goodness,
I carry it with me into the tender spaces
where pain meets compassion.
Winter is a portal,
when Nouwen’s “portable cell”
finally seems within reach,
if only for this moment,
right here,
right now.
Just this.