Every moment of our lives is like a Quaker Silent Meeting.

Several days ago while hiking in the mountains, I was thinking about the way a Quaker Silent Meeting works. It's something I'd like my students at Naropa University - where I teach - to experience. Many family members on my mother's side - the Brintons - were prominent Pennsylvania Quakers, and their egalitarian, democratic and contemplative spirituality has been heavily influential on who I am today.

In a Quaker Meeting, the worship is completely silent. Then, whenever a person feels led by the Spirit, they stand, speak from their heart, and then sit down again. A few minutes later, another person stands, speaks their truth for that moment, and then sits down. There is no discussion, no commentary on what others have said, no one-upmanship when the attitudes of the participants are in the right place. Rather, each person's heartfelt statement appears out of the silence - as though out of nowhere - speaks, and then dissolves back into the silence once again. I envision it being like a Word of God's love speaking itself, and then resting back into the silence of Divine contentment. Or rather, like an echo appearing out of Nowhere, with God lost in bliss before he can ever speak the original word.

Suddenly, as I was reflecting on all of this, it appeared to me that the mountain landscape where I was traveling was also a sort of Quaker Silent Meeting. As I hiked toward treeline, each Subalpine Fir tree would speak its truth, through its unique form and appearance - like an echo in the vast, silent, snowy landscape. Then it would settle back into the silence until the next tree I encountered would speak ITS truth. The same happened with the peaks, which would momentarily appear out of the mist in order to speak their rocky truth, and then disappear once again into the foggy silence. It was as though I was part of a worship meeting, with trees and mountains rather than people as participants.

When I returned home, I realized that every moment in town is also a kind of Quaker Silent Meeting. Each person we meet, each passing car, each tree planted in each yard speaks its truth as we encounter it, and then dissolves back into the silence of Divine Love. Suddenly, I wanted little to do with the usual distractions with which we are so often tempted to fill the silence - verbal commentary about whether we like something or not, a seemingly endless barrage of internet information, or even the music we sometimes play in order to fill what seems to be emptiness. How could we ever succumb to such distractions, when everything around us is continually speaking its truth? Suddenly, when viewed in this way, ALL of reality becomes holy!

Photo: Rocky peaks and an avalanche chute with a slanted tree above Emerald Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, January 19, 2015