Fr Dan McCauley SMA, from Dromantine Retreat & Conference Centre, Newry, Co Down shared with ECI his reflection from the meeting of their Eco Spirituality Group on November 14th 2018:
SILENCE
These days nature is preparing to go to sleep. For us humans to sleep soundly we need silence. As we prepare to head into winter nature is quietening itself for the long dark nights, the cold, the wind and rain, snow hail and frost. A great silence descends.
November is a month for remembering departed relatives, friends, confreres and all the faithful. A silent prayer at the grave of a loved one. As I drove home to Clady on All Souls Day my first port of call was to the grave of my sister Ann on the Melmount Road in Strabane who died aged 41 in 1995. It was wild, windy and wet. After a few moments silent prayer by her graveside I continued to our parish graveyard in Doneyloop, five miles further. There I spend a few moments in prayerful reflection by my father’s grave and then that of Adrian Devine, my nephew-in-law who died suddenly last January aged 41. There wasn’t another living soul around. There’s nothing as profound as the silence in a wet and windy November graveyard as daylight fades.
I once read in a book about bird-life that at the end of Spring, when the time for mating, nest-building, hatching and rearing the chicks is over the bird community falls silent. I decided to put this to the test in our garden in Dromantine. The garden is surrounded by trees and the bird-chorus from March to June is only brilliant. However from early July there isn’t a single ‘cheep’ to be heard. The silence is striking and almost eerie. The birds fell silent.
Over the past Remembrance Weekend (11th Nov) we repeatedly heard a similar phrase used to describe the ending of World War 1 – “the guns fell silent”. During the multitude of Remembrance Services that took place in many venues a period of silence was observed to remember, respect and honour the dead.
Autumn has almost gone. Already the cold hand of Winter reached through the veil that separates the seasons and caressed the land with her icy breath and palm on frosty mornings at the start of November. All around us nature is settling down to its seasonal slumber. One by one the last of the leaves are falling from the trees, the unpicked apples lie decaying on the ground providing food for the diverse forms of life under the trees, nature’s recycling process. Soon the lights will be turned off and the long dark, silent vigil will be under way. All seems lifeless … but
“every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle
A seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light
A bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream” Barbara Winkler.
While spring is my favourite time of year I now realise that without winter the spring would not be the wonderful season it is.