Watch with me as a red maple leaf lets go of the outstretched arm of the tree and quietly flutters alone to the ground.
There’s no fanfare.
No processional.
No music at all.
Just the silent dance of a single leaf doing what it was created to do.
When Sue Thomas and I first visited this property we now call WaterBrooks, she wanted to get out there to scour and explore the 113 acres of Vermont mountainside. But MS left her unstable on her feet.
“You be my Joshua and go scout out the land,” she commissioned me. When she was excited her voice would raise several decibels, although she was not aware of it. This was one of those times. “I’ll wait here on the porch,” she boomed.
And so I left her on the porch of the rustic log cabin and I began to cautiously explore. Not exactly sure what she wanted me to look for, I was drinking in all aspects so I would be able to verbally describe to her later to give her a visual. After all, she was the one with the long-time dream of finding a Retreat property where people could come to be silent and reconnect with the Lord. I was still new to the scene, only in the picture a little over a year and I was still learning about the vision God had laid on her heart.
Next to the cabin is the area we have since named The Garden of the Master. Today it holds flower beds behind rock retaining walls, and park benches on lush green grass even in September, although now dotted with fallen maple leaves.
Then it was thick, dark forest, somewhat swampy and mushy in areas with lots of fallen rotted dead wood.
I climbed over a tangle of brush and came into a little clearing.
It wasn’t so much what I saw, but it was what I felt.
I took a deep breath and knew verbal description was out of my league.
I had to go get Sue.
“You just have to come into the woods with me,” I pleaded.
“I can’t walk it. That’s why I have you. I’ll trust your description.” I could feel her sadness palpitating behind the bright smile.
“Looky here!” I waved a broken shovel handle that was leaning against the side of the primitive cabin. “You use this in one hand and hang on to me with the other. I think we can do this! It’s not that far where I want to go.”
Carefully we began picking our way across a shallow ditch and up the bank that bordered the dark woods. It was a short 50 foot stroll and to me the ground looked pretty flat.
For Sue, each step was laborious and uncertain. She leaned heavily on my arm. I could feel sheer determination in her tightening grip.
“We’re here,” I whispered.
She nodded. Then straightening her shoulders, she closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
I waited.
When she opened her eyes she looked straight into mine with that question that was very characteristic of her. I have since heard this question many times over the years.
“Tell me, what do you hear?”
It was my turn to stand still and take a few deep breaths.
“I hear… bugs. Water. Maybe from the brook? There’s a constant sound of water. I hear a bird singing, and a crow must be flying over because I hear a caw.”
I stopped for a few moments so I could listen even more deeply.
“I can hear us breathing.
I actually can hear that leaf fluttering through the air…”
My sentence trailed off into subdued silence.
Sue’s eyes intently searched mine.
“That’s all I hear.” It’s a good thing Sue Thomas was an expert lip reader, because I was barely moving my mouth with the solemnity of such silence.
“We found it! This is it! To God be the glory! This is the place where the silence will not be broken!” Although Sue’s eyes were dancing with excitement, her voice was a sacred hush.
Just then the sun broke through the clouds, penetrating the dappled gloom of the forest, pouring in a bright ray of sunlight right smack where we were standing. The Spot of Silence was illuminated with radiance.
Our eyes met and she gave an almost imperceptible little nod. Her voice was suppressed with awe, “Even God is smiling!”
Over the past 20 years I, too, have caught the vision and the passion to see this place used for the glory of God, as a place of silence and sanctified beauty where people can come to meet God through prayer.
Sue has finished her work here and has gone Home to be present with the Lord.
I miss her enthusiasm, and I cherish the example she set before me.
She fully embraced life with both hands and lived it to the hilt.
She poured her energy into encouraging people in all walks of life.
She dreamed big.
She had purpose and a vision.
Do you remember what Sue said when she realized this was the place that God intended to be used in His ministry?
“A place where the silence will not be broken.”
The full weight of this statement did not hit me until after she was gone from here.
Sue Thomas never needed a Silent Place. She lived in a world of silence her entire life on this Earth.
All along, she wanted to create a place of unbroken and uninterrupted silence
for me
and for you.
Her personal experience went from hating being deaf, to embracing the silence as a friend, and as a gift from God.
“For it is only in the silence that we will truly hear that still small voice of God.” ~Sue Thomas
Over and over again He calls us to make time to come away from the commotion and the clatter of the crowds and to find a place where we can be refreshed and renewed and ready to go back into community.
We need these moments of solemn silence.
No fanfare.
No processional.
No music at all.
By taking time in the silence to worship Him,
we, too,
are doing exactly
what we are created to do.
