Beauty and Silence

When I was young, there was a small sign that hung next to the bay window that overlooked the backyard. It read, “How beautiful the silence of growing things.” Now, nearly three decades and three thousand miles from that place, I see the verdant green of new shoots on plants I put into the ground last year. I see the slow and enduring cycle of the natural world open to the light of summer. I see…a rainbow unicorn jump all over this keyboard as the laptop screen is forcefully closed by the small hands of a clumsy yet determined toddler. 

These days are a reminder that silence, while essential in its own right, is not required for or characteristic of growing things. What we might take for silence is actually the fundamental - the lowest and most prominent pitch upon which the harmony of nature unfolds. Our task continues to be finding signal amidst a cacophonic information landscape. Perhaps if we open our ears and eyes to the peace of wild things we can come to rest in something not quite silent, but beautiful. 

Behold, The Sea

I prefer to consult the ocean in the early morning or at the close of day. Having grown up along the sandy shores of New Jersey, the rumbling of the Atlantic is sometimes more familiar than my own voice. It has been the canvas against which much of my life has been painted. It was the standard against which I measured depth and I challenged Fear.

I have borne witness to its most peaceful stillness and its most apocalyptic rage. It has taught harsh lessons and served as quiet counsel. Emerson has described the sea as “the nourisher of kinds, purger of earth, and medicine of men,” and I am inclined to agree with him.

 The Oregon coast is colder, more rugged, and its shores far greener.  As yet, I’ve had little experience with the Pacific. Beneath the differences, the smell of the salt air and the sound of the waves has the same power to “wash out harms and griefs from memory.”

 In a time where a sense of uncertainty, turmoil, and unbridled hate saturates our news and our discourse, it is more important than ever to come into the peace of wild things.