Quiet Art

The stillness of the
peace of God is mine.

– A Course in Miracles
Lesson 273

This time last week on Friday, October 23, I turned 61.

I took the day off work not only to mark my birthday but to attend my dear friend Brigid McDonald’s funeral. Later in the day I did some errands, put my car through a car wash, and visited the Prayer Tree. That night, my friends Noelle and John hosted a lovely dinner for me with our mutual friends Fred and Madeline.

All in all, it was a quiet birthday, which suited me just fine.

That’s because the “quiet art” of cultivating stillness is something that’s been an important focus in my spiritual life of late.

I’m thinking you’ll agree with me when I say that there’s just way too much noise, chaos and uncertainty in the world right now, more so than usual these past few years. As a result, I’m feeling the need to be extra mindful of creating time and space to take that “sacred pause” so as to align myself with the “living light” both within and beyond me.

I’m still engaging in things that matter – including, of course, my work as a Palliative Care chaplain; and I continue to stay informed and involved as best I can in the political scene. But I do so from a place of inner groundedness and a certain loving detachment from the need to control each and every outcome. Because, more often than not, I can’t control outcomes; I can only open myself to being guided by the sacred source within to “show-up” in ways that extend the love, understanding and peace of this same sacred source.

I’ve discovered that to both receive and extend the transforming flow of the sacred, of God, of the living light – whatever name we want to give it, I need to cultivate times of stillness and quiet.

As has been the tradition at The Wild Reed, I mark the occasion of my birthday this year by sharing a song, prayer and/or reflection that I find particularly meaningful; that speaks to where I’m at on my journey.

This year, given everything I’ve just said about quietude and stillness being important aspects of my spiritual life and journey, I’m sharing “Quiet Art,” one of a number of stand-out tracks from Wendy Matthews’ 1992 album, Lily. I hope you find it as beautiful and meaningful as I do.

You show astounding grace
Among these dislocated souls
You’re not of this world
Where everything is bought and sold

I have tried but thankfully I’m flesh and soul
You’re just standing quiet
Another lost forgotten art
Either way you miss
For you are neither slave nor free
If you can stay with me,
Talk about the things that you most want to be
The quiet art of standing still

Hold on tight
We can withstand the coldest hearts
Just a world weary smile
You feel there’s nothing left to give
I want to help you carry this
If silence is consent
Then I have nothing left to say
If you can stay with me
Talk about the things that you most want to be
Well, it’s not past you yet
It’s the quiet art of standing still

This must be a test
I pray you can find the strength
Like moments you regret
Nothing can be done they’re gone
Sleep come take me quick
To the quiet art of standing still

Try and touch the place
Where everything was broken
By all that you resist
You cannot make a deal with God
I want to help you carry this
If silence is consent
There’s nothing left I have to say
If you can stay with me
Talk about the things that you most want to be
Well it hasn’t passed you yet
It’s the quiet art of standing still

~ “Quiet Art”
by M. Connor and Wendy Matthews
(from Wendy Matthews’ 1992 album Lily)

Beloved One, Your peace is mine.
What need have I to fear that anything can rob me of what
You would have me keep? I cannot lose Your gifts to me.
And so the peace You gave me is with me still,
in quietness and in my own eternal Love for You.

– A Course in Miracles
Excerpted from Lesson 273 (adapted)

See also the previous Wild Reed birthday posts:
• Turning 60 (2025)
• Birthday Musings (2024)
• A Prayer of Anchoring (2023)
• Deeper Understandings (2022)
• Home to Myself (2021)
• Moments of Wonder (2020)
• This Is the Time (2019)
• With Love Inside (2018)
• On This “Echoing-Day” of My Birth (2017)
• Turning 50 (2015)
• A Guidepost on the Journey (2014)
• In the Eye of the Storm, a Tree of Living Flame (2012)
• Journeying Into the Truth . . . Valiantly, of Course (2010)
• No Matter What (2009)


See also:
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Cultivating Stillness
• Our Quiet Time
• A Season of Listening
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On
• Being the Light
• Inayat Khan and the Fountain of Happiness Within
• Inayat Khan and the Alchemy of Happiness
• A Light That Will Always Shine
• A Living Light
• A Perpetual Fire Within
• I Am One With the Beloved


And for more of Wendy Matthews at The Wild Reed, see:
• Like the Sun
• A Welcome Return
• Beautiful View
• Nobody But You
• Standing Strong
• Wendy Matthews: “Free, Like the Wind”
• The Day Wendy Walked Away
• We All Need Love
• And Love Is Lord of All


Images: Léo Di-Fazio