Still, Still, Still
Be still, and know that I am God.
—God, Psalm 46:10
The song came to me on a dark evening last December as I was driving home, turning my radio dial every seven seconds to find a Christmas music station that wasn’t playing Mariah Carey. I finally chose the classical station, hoping they would keep their Christmas music. . .classic. It was then that I heard a choir of the sweetest most angelic German children singing a Christmas lullaby I’d never encountered before, the beauty of which stunned me:
Still, still, still
One can hear the falling snow
For all is hushed,
The world is sleeping,
Holy Star its vigil keeping
Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.Sleep, sleep, sleep,
'Tis the eve of our Savior's birth
The night is peaceful all around you,
Close your eyes,
Let sleep surround you
Sleep, sleep, sleep
'Tis the eve of our Savior's birth.
Hearing that song for the first time felt like a moment removed from time, as if my heart had ascended to the place where music comes from while my cold hands still gripped the steering wheel. You must imagine the voices of a German children’s choir singing Schtille, Schtille, Schtille in dulcet tones to receive the full effect. I kept my eyes on the road as the blur of street lights rushed past me, but in my mind I was standing in the clearing of an evergreen forest on a starlit night, watching the snow fall. For the rest of the drive home, I basked in the sheltering cocoon of stillness that the lullaby had created in my soul. Last year, Still, Still, Still was a balm to my spirit—a blessing for stillness—that re-awakened in me the quiet wonder of Christ’s birth.
This week, I pulled out my small spiral bound notebook to make a to-do list for the day. But the words I wrote at the top of my list surprised me: Still, still, still. I never did make that to-do list. Instead, I began to wonder if Still, Still, Still might be a Trinitarian invitation to step out of the frantic hurriedness of Christmas—which seems to leak into the quiet holiness of Advent more and more each year—and be still in Holy Presence. After all, God was not in Elijah’s whirlwind, earthquake, or fire—God was in the whisper. And to hear that whisper, Elijah needed to be still, still, still. I want to be a listener of the whisper, a beholder of the mysteries, and I am beginning to suspect that stillness is the gateway to beholding the presence of God in my midst. Yet stillness has proven exceptionally difficult to come by lately. It is one thing to cognitively embrace the value of stillness, but living in a way that prioritizes stillness is another matter entirely.
So often we wonder why God seems to be silent, yet we are unwilling to sacrifice the loud and busy pace of our internal and external worlds in favor of listening for God’s voice. The communication issue must be on God’s end, we conclude, as it becomes easier and easier for God’s voice to become an implausible fantasy with each year that passes. I wonder if there is something about stillness that terrifies us—that just feels too vulnerable. There have been countless times this year in which I’ve been surprised to find a wellspring of tears rising to the surface in rare moments of stillness, as if they were simply waiting for my attention to whisper their truth. I confess that more often than not, I exit that tender space quickly in search of noise—not wanting to know their meaning because if there is nothing to know then there is nothing about my life that needs to change, and change scares me. But as I begin to trust the love of the One who embraces me in stillness, I am growing more curious to discover just what those tears are saying and how they want to change my life. To sacrifice stillness on the altar of busyness is to risk losing our very souls.
This Advent and Christmas, I do not want to miss Jesus: the still and perfect Kairos moment of eternity entering time that changed the world. I am not so naïve as to believe that Mary in her maiden bliss gave birth to Jesus as softly and quietly as the falling snow. No, Mary was likely screaming, wailing, and wishing she’d never said “yes” in those agonizing hours between faith and sight. But after the loud pain of labor, I imagine there was a moment in which Mary beheld her Savior as she held him in her arms—the two of them still and utterly present to the miracle of life—both embraced in the eternal dance of stillness that finds its source in the Trinity.
“At the still point of the turning world,” writes T.S. Eliot in Burnt Norton, “There the dance is.” Perhaps the moment of shared stillness between Mary and Jesus, earth and heaven, is the axis upon which the earth turns. “Except for the point, the still point,” Eliot continues, “There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” Eliot later describes this still point as “release from the inner and the outer compulsion, yet surrounded by a grace of sense, a white light still and moving. . .” A white light still and moving, just as the Holy Star kept perfect vigil while keeping time with the dance of the cosmos. As we continue our Advent sojourn through darkness while anticipating the Light, I pray that each of us will find ourselves released from the inner and outer compulsion of busyness and instead surrounded by a sense of God’s grace descending upon us, as softly and quietly as fresh falling snow.
At the still point of the turning world,
There the Dance is;
And there is only the Dance.
Still, Still, Still.
Amen.
Going Deeper:
Listen to what I believe is the first recording I heard of Still, Still, Still, sung first in Austrian and then in English. Enjoy!
Learn more about the song history of Still, Still, Still.