“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15
The Noise Within
May drifts in like a hymn half-remembered, and yet our hearts can feel as loud as iron foundries. Newsfeeds throb, debts sit up all night muttering, relationships push against the ribcage for attention. We turn the volume down on our devices only to discover the commotion has taken a lease inside us. The ancient prophet Elijah once mistook thunder and wildfire for the Almighty’s arrival, but the Lord waited until every spectacle spent itself and then breathed a whisper. Elijah’s shoulders unclenched, not because circumstances changed, but because the divine voice refused to shout over the racket. Those who are tired of diagnoses, tired of charts mapping the psyche like an engine’s wiring, can still find rest in this older way. God does not issue prescriptions; He invites us into quiet companionship. The change begins when we concede that internal clamor is neither inevitable nor permanent. Like a lantern trimmed at dusk, the soul can be taught to burn with a steady, low flame.
Crafting a Sacred Hush
A hush is not the same as silence. Silence can be an empty hallway; hush is a chamber warmed by Presence. Choose a corner of your life the way Jerusalem’s pilgrims chose a gate, deliberately, expectantly. A kitchen chair before sunrise will do, or the driver’s seat parked beneath trembling poplars, or a laundry room reclaimed from its usual clatter. Mark it in a small, tangible way: a single beeswax candle, a smooth river stone, a verse scrawled on scrap paper and taped above eye level. Returning there each day at roughly the same hour teaches muscle memory; soon the heartbeat will slow the moment you arrive. Sit without agenda. Let the breath settle until it feels borrowed from a deeper wind. If worries barge in like uninvited guests, greet them by name, rent, prognosis, prodigal child, then picture placing each one into the open hands of Christ and walking a short distance away. The act may repeat a dozen times in a sitting; repetition is not defeat but spiritual rehearsal, the way a harpist plays scales until strings hold their pitch. In time, you will feel a low pulse beneath all the turbulence, the living heartbeat of God that has never once quickened.
Carrying Quiet into the Day
When the chair is empty and the world starts talking again, the hush can travel with you like a hidden river. Traffic may snarl, supervisors may demand, children may quarrel, yet the steady current inside remains. Scripture condensed to a handful of syllables, “Be still and know”, can be breathed out while waiting at a stoplight. A sparrow’s quick hymn on the power line can remind you that heaven has woven music into ordinary minutes. At night, close your eyes and trade the day’s unfinished business for three brief sentences: gratitude for one gift, pardon for one shortcoming, trust for the hours of sleep ahead. Then let the mind unclasp its fingers. The One who shaped galaxies from wide hush will keep vigil. Each dawn, your small practice of stillness grows sturdier, like a sapling sending roots toward subterranean streams. Weeks turn into seasons, and the world will notice, not because you quote theories, but because your presence becomes restful soil where other weary hearts may plant their own seeds of quiet.
Voice of the Ember
It begins in the hollow, a syllable softer than dust,
a breath that quivers the spider’s thread stretched across a windowsill.
No ear records it save the begging heart, yet something stirs,
an ember awakens, glows, dares to imagine flame.
Stone walls lean closer, puzzled by the faint insistence,
while the hush itself listens and widens like dawn.
Seasons wheel; the murmur gathers iron in its throat.
Faint becomes firm, tremor becomes timber, timber becomes a horn of brass.
Mountains crack their knuckles under the resonance, rivers reverse course,
and the once-fragile whisper rises into a roar that rattles the bones of the earth.
Every creature pauses, not in fear but in recognition,
for the roar is merely the whisper grown tall,
the sound of a soul that has made room enough to hold God’s thunder.
Dr. Tranquil
Recommended Reading for Pilgrims of Quiet
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence: a humble cook teaches kings and novices alike how to keep company with God amid pots and pans.
Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila: a luminous map of the soul’s chambers, each doorway opening deeper into stillness.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer: a modern call to sabotage the cult of busyness and rediscover unhurried discipleship.