Be still. Be still and know that I am God. Such words can be taken as an invitation to the mystical life, to participate fully in the present moment.

Stillness is something that I associate with Lent, as a practice to make time and space for God in our daily lives, as we reflect on the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness.
This year, as Lent coincides with a viral outbreak, stillness might be for some a command more than a choice. As some face isolation or time spent in quarantine — literally ‘forty days’ — this ‘imposed stillness’ can sound daunting and synonymous with loneliness.

We may, like Jesus, have to withdraw ourselves from the world for a while. But I don’t think we will find ourselves ‘alone into the alone’. Rather, in our stillness, the quietness of our lives, we may once again find ourselves witnesses to the infinite presence of God.

Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations;
I will be exalted in the earth — Psalm 46.

Anna Dill