Journal of Sacred Work

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

 I grew up with a wonderful toy called "Chatty Cathy." Pull her magic ring on the back of her neck and she and I could exchange words in play conversation. I most of all remember her saying "I love you," and then asking of me "Do you love me?" At times her words reflected my own sensibilities "I'm so tired," or "I'd like a cookie." It seems that even as a child, conversation is important. It turns out conversation for us all is about connecting with, as Emerson once wrote, "that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship." How is it that we yearn for and yet so often miss the sharing of this common heart?

At times, in our efforts to connect, words can actually get in the way of the moment of shared experience. Although we use words to connect, they often have the opposite effect. Some of us use words to fill the quiet. There may be a discomfort with silence, and so we chatter. We may want most of all to connect with others, but "chatty Cathy" cannot get past the banter to find a way into meaningful conversation.

Lately I've noticed, when watching my 3 year-old granddaughter prepare herself when the time comes to leave our home, how she asks for some play moment "just one more time." It's as if she is trying to grasp and hold, perhaps for her future remembering, the shared moment of play and laughter. I've experienced that same effort in my travels, at times missing the moment focusing instead on what is before me through a tiny lens in an effort to grasp and hold for future remembering. I wonder what I've missed in the meantime.

It has been suggested that all we need is already available to us, and yet we search on and on. One teacher likened this quest to searching for one's glasses while wearing them. Why is it so hard to hold in silence the moment, to take in the magnificence of being? Why do we feel the need to rush in and fill the void at the bedside with words and activity?

While silence seems to often cause us dismay, on occasion she surprises us with her gifts. Author and journalist Catherine Ingram offers the possibility of awakened awareness, silent witnessing not bathed "in brilliance of thought but the brilliance of pure perception." In silence with awakened awareness, "we are willing to gaze into the eyes of another without fear or desire – without stories about who I am or who she is – and sense there only the light of existence shining in a particular pair of eyes."

This is the awareness that exists beyond words and wherein the potential for a sacred encounter lies, but that all too often we rush in with need to fill the silence. This awakened awareness, this willingness to rest and joy in the moment of simply being, is among the gifts we may offer in our care giving. We invite you today to notice the one before you with simple awakened awareness, to experience the light shining there, to share the common heart. That is radical and love, indeed.