God in stillness

A cold and damp day. I went to Quaker meeting this morning, sat in the wooden pew, quieted my mind, and closed my eyes to open my senses and my heart. Cars swished by outside in the rain. The unrestrained voices of children downstairs in Sunday school class, coughs and sneezes. The creak of the floors beneath gentle footsteps, the smell of wood and wet wool, a woman greeting a friend, "So good to see you," in a muffled voice. Not total silence but the simple sounds of life. Not silence but stillness. In recent years I've retreated more and more into a quiet life--no television, occasional radio, the only music often the music I play on the banjo or fiddle. There is such peace in this stillness. For me, it is where I find God. Beyond thought, beyond language, in stillness there is God.