Issue 34: “Keeping Quiet”
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
Our mission at the Matthew 25 Initiative is to equip and sustain Anglicans serving alongside the vulnerable. The work of justice and mercy is often wondrous and also difficult. Holding beauty, naming pain, and contending for hope is what we do at M25i.
Walter Brueggeman writes, "[A poem] thinks the unthinkable and utters the unutterable." In places of brokenness, where much feels unutterable and unimaginable, we encounter Jesus. Continue with us in reflection and prayer through this series, "For the Soul," as poetry offers us Spirit-soaked imaginations.
Before you begin...
Pablo Neruda’s Keeping Quiet reminds us that stillness is not escape, but awakening. “What I want should not be confused with total inactivity,” he writes. In the work of justice and mercy, pausing can feel indulgent—but it is essential.
We cannot sustain compassion without contemplation. Stillness interrupts the rush and reorients us to what matters: the dignity of others, the nearness of God, and the hidden ways grace is at work.
In M25i work, to be still is to remember we are not saviors. We are witnesses. We are companions. We are beloved. The quiet makes space to hear God—and to hear those we serve with new ears.
Pietro Fragiacomo (Italian), A Quiet Pond, 1902, Oil on canvas
Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Pray
God of Silence and Sound,
Teach us the wisdom of stopping.
Interrupt our hurry with your peace.
Quiet our minds, soften our hearts, and awaken us to your presence—
In the stillness, in the suffering, and in the sacred ordinary.
May our pause become a prayer,
And our listening become love.
Amen.
Discover God’s heart for Justice and Mercy
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