The Uncomfortable Silence

For decades,
I thought resting and reverence
once a week
was a bizarre concept.
I felt like stopping
meant losing.
Keep moving.
Keep chasing.
Keep finding something
to fill the empty spaces.

A man can get used to noise
and the constant doing.
Always doing.
The phone ringing.
The bills coming.
The next problem
seeping in through the cracks.
Doing this.
Doing that.
Even the things that destroy us
can become familiar.
Chaos becomes a friend,
slipping in for a cup of coffee.

Then one day,
I read from that old book.
And there it is.
A day set aside.
No running.
No working.
No fixing.
No proving.
Just rest.
Think about the Creator.

I hear it
in the songs of sparrows.
I see it
in the clouds dancing
across the sky.
I wake up early,
drink my coffee slowly,
and somehow the hardest thing
to do
is nothing.
Just be.

The flesh wants motion.
The mind craves distraction.
The old ghosts knock on the door,
asking if I forgot
how to run.
But maybe peace
isn't the absence of something.
Maybe it was waiting here,
quietly,
the whole time.