Vitamin Quiet

There's something beautiful about silence.

We're not talking visual beauty here, obviously - although it could be argued that the silent scene of a slumbering woodland lake is beautiful for its visible stillness. No, the silence I refer to is the ceaing from movement that only those who have been moving very quickly can appreciate. It is also a cessation from noise.

Do I speak from experience? Of course I do. At the momen, two of my three children are sleeping. The other, my oldest, is (comparitively) quietly playing in his bedroom with a friend while they listen to a story on CD. No phone is ringing nearby. No knock has sounded on my door for at least several hours. I spent this morning bustling about, mailing Christmas packages and fulfilling various obligations with gusto, and now, in the full of the afternoon, I find silence, find beauty.

It may not last for long. These poignant gifts rarely do. But while it is mine, I embrace it. I embrace the difference between working and rest, between noise and quietness. I embrace the gift of peace with a kind of fervent devotion - not for the peace itself but for the great Peace-Giver who has gifted it in the first place.

And now I hear my children laughing. The moment has passed; I move on. But I move on enriched for this brief pause, this moment of beauty that consisted entirely of the absence of activity. And as I move on, I realize that any activities I pursue for the rest of the day will speak of this moment of peace. I will be less frenzied - more calm. Perhaps I myself will become Beauty, or at least Quietness, to those around me. Perhaps I will be this for my own family.

Whatever the case, I will be grateful. And I will wait and work patiently until the next such moment comes, enjoying the other beauty that comes from the opposite of Quiet, Activity.