Sometimes, I find Mary in the silence.

Actually, I often find Mary in the silence.

Just as I find her beside me in the midst of chaos and craziness, standing beside me and reminding me that this is my vocation, this is the joy of my life, this is the season I’m in, so I find her in the times I carve out silence for myself.

This weekend was one such time.

My sister-in-law and her best friend invited us to come to the country with them. It was a camp of her friend’s, set back in the woods an hour from Natchez, Mississippi, and the smell of the pines and the campfire took me back to childhood days.

Then there was the hammock. I prayed my rosary in it on Saturday, and was struck, looking up, by the way the colors, by the smells, by the sounds.

All weekend, I did a whole lot of nothing. Well, let me clarify. By “nothing,” I mean that I wasn’t online. By “nothing,” I mean that I let my kids run around and let the other women (so kindly) help me. By “nothing,” I mean that I took naps and read entire books.

And though there was a soundtrack to the weekend, there was also a lot of silence. Silence from the conversations in my everyday life, silence from the regular buzzing of things needing attention, silence from the responsibilities and pressures of other places.

I realized, this weekend, how much I need to carve different kinds of silence for myself.

There’s the morning prayer silence that’s part of my daily routine and there’s the Adoration silence that’s part of my weekly schedule, but there is not this silence of nature and silence from work in my regular schedule.

Though I live in the country, I have plenty of noise. Thanks to a weekend away, I have a taste of what I’ve been missing and a sense of how much more accessible it could be to me.

Following Mary to her Son is proving to be an ongoing journey for me. It has its ups and downs. It’s an adventure all its own.

But the travel seems to be smoother when I’ve allowed myself plenty of the space of silence.

Photo courtesy of ejmc