Be Still

From the Retreat House in the coastal/rural town of Blachiessuse, Trinidad and Tobago

The morning is at a standstill. The concert stage of the coastland is quiet. Nothing is moving except for a lone hummingbird darting from flower to flower. Coconut trees are hardly swaying, seemingly sluggishly getting out of bed. The audience of the ocean waves is less vociferous than on previous mornings. The sky is covered with a thin blanket of clouds stretching far and wide, with no puffiness or ruffles. Calmness covers the land. 

The wind barely hovers over the land, drenched from days of continuous rain. It appears as if the carnival band of nature is taking a needed break after days of wild, hardcore revelry.  Tiredness envelopes everything.  My eyes are not even capturing any evidence of flying creatures… my eardrums detect only the weak sound of chirping distant birds. 

This morning I observed the appearance of four stalks of short, tiny pink flowering plants almost lost in the vast ocean of green grass, advertising its pink and white flowers, looking quite vulnerable and weak in the open wild grass.  They are new appearances. They remind us that the weak and vulnerable are unique in the eyes of God. 

To make matters worse, it begins to drizzle. The clouds increase the thickness of their blanket.  Another day in paradise has already started in stillness. I can’t avoid thinking that elsewhere in paradise, the picture is different: the wildness of war, conflict, injustice, greed, and corruption. 

For now, I am consoled that we become aware of God’s presence in stillness. 

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).