One of my favorite hymns in our grey hymnal is “Find A Stillness,” with lyrics by Carl Seaburg, set to a Transylvanian folk tune. It is a meditative even prayerful hymn that includes these verses:

Find a stillness, hold a stillness, let the stillness carry me
Find the silence, hold the silence, let the silence carry me
In the spirit, by the spirit, with the spirit giving power, I will find true harmony

As we enter this summer season, we often find times for relaxing, if not vacationing. Summer often invites us into an easier pace and perhaps more time for contemplating and attending to the world of nature and our own inner landscape. Pico Iyer, who in his book, The Art of Stillness, tells of his own journey of letting stillness transform him amid his driven life as a travel writer and journalist. There are some lessons to learn from his experiences and our own practice of “letting the stillness” carry us.