Inner Quiet

     Right off, I want to make clear that I love family get-togethers. Aside from major holidays, our immediate family gathers once weekly or once every two weeks, usually on Sunday, for the midday meal, lively banter, and lately, a game or two of Mexican Train Dominos. These gatherings take place here at my mother's house, the old homestead, if you will. It is a small—nay, tiny house in which one may easily hear from one end of it a conversation held at the other end, unless doors are closed or the conversants are whispering. When siblings mit  spouses are assembled all together in one room, be it the living or dining room, and everyone is talking at once, either to each other in pairs or on top of each other in a futile effort to be heard, the noise level can be truly astonishing.

     Astonishing, yes—especially to one who has lived fifteen years all alone in a small apartment, followed by nearly two and a half years in one of the quietest habitations on earth—a Catholic cloister. I didn't need to move to midtown Manhattan directly from the monastery to experience the noise equivalent of culture shock (sound shock, perhaps?); no, I simply had to move back to the family homestead. Even after six years back "in the world," I can still be easily and negatively affected by noise. Nor does the noise have to be excessive; it can be my mother's TV turned up just a tad past comfortable, a neighbor's stereo's mega bass thumping just a little too loudly, a crowded restaurant, a shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon. My sensitive ears are literally pained and, if I'm not vigilant, my quiet core can be jangled.

     This quiet core is something that was carefully nurtured during my brief time as a monastic. It has become essential to my day-to-day existence now that I no longer have the enclosure walls to shield me from the noise and potentially negative influence of the world. I believe those who adhere to Asian philosophies would call this inner peace a "Zen place." To Christians, it is that deepest part of the soul where the Holy Trinity dwells. It is the peace of Christ that creates this quiet core, a peace that is given when we, through a conscious effort of the will and with the help of divine grace, strive to keep its environment (mind, soul, and body) a fit dwelling place. It is where we meet God in moments of silent contemplation, where we hear his wordless voice speaking to us through the Spirit. It is not a silence of emptiness, but of sublime fullness. This is precisely why monasteries exist, and why a quiet environment is so crucial to monastic life.

     However, not everyone is called to be a monastic. Most people live in the secular, noisy, jostling, stress-filled world that is only a pilgrimage to the life we are all meant to live. Monastic life strives to provide a taste of that promised life, but if we can't live in a monastery we can at least build and maintain an inner monastery where we can retreat from the world's noise and confusion and listen to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.

     My family's boisterous banter is by no means a negative influence, but in all honesty, it is at times aurally challenging and disturbing to one's calm. So when I'm sitting at the dining room table with my family, playing dominos, and everyone around me is talking at once and at the top of their voices, I make a special effort to remain as quiet and inwardly still as possible. When my mother turns her TV up near maximum volume because she's growing a bit hard of hearing, I try my best not to grumble, even in my mind. When my neighbor's mega bass pounds away through my bedroom wall, I delay my prayer time till he shuts it off, and in the meanwhile try to be patient by thinking of how patient God is with me. It's either that, or go mad.