When I was in Italy, Mme. Montessori told me that besides all the activities she gives to children, she encourages them to keep silence; and after a little time, they like it so much that they prefer silence to their activity. And it interested me to see a little girl of about six years of age, when the time of silence came, went and closed the windows and door, and put away all the things that she was playing with. Then she came and sat in her little chair and closed her eyes, and she did not open them for about three or four minutes. It seemed she preferred those five minutes of silence to all the playing of the whole day.
If we are called to be observers and contemplators, we are also called to nourish, to be nourishers, not consumers. Only a nourisher knows when to stop, not to overeat, overindulge, to draw back. To say no. I have a friend who has a coffee mug with the inscription: DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE ... We often underestimate those who stand there. But I have had to do some new thinking about all this, as I have had to do some new thinking about the sound of the tree falling in the forest. If we are unwilling to practice the gift of contemplation, we are likely to get stuck in one position, and to be fearful of changing it, and so we cling, unable to laugh at ourselves and move on.
