For the Monday after Pentecost
Here is a devotional to orient you, Dear Reader, for this upcoming week.
You’ll find scripture, poem, psalm, and blessing.
May it give your spirit what it needs and may you find fresh layers to your faith through these words.
Pentecost tells of a rowdy introduction to life with the spirit – swirling winds, wildfires that don’t burn, and preaching in every language available. It’s a powerful introduction to the Holy Spirit, but it is not the only way the spirit moves or appears.
In case the Holy Spirit does not feel like rushing wind and hearts on fire in your life, I offer this devotional about the presence of God in sheer silence – the less audacious, yet still unshackled presence of the Spirit.
Today, we read an adapted poem from Mohammad Younus, a former professor turned mystical poet out of Kashmir. We pair it with a story of Elijah finding God in the sheer silence and a psalm about waiting for God.
May these words cradle you like the silence which surrounds us all.
The Sound of Sheer Silence
At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire: a sound of sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
1 Kings 19:9, 11-13
Silence is not the absence of words (adapted)
Before the first ripple of time,
before the birth of space and light,
there was Silence—
eternal, unbroken, whole.
The void cradled it,
a womb of infinite potential,
where galaxies stir in their dreaming
and stars whisper secrets yet unborn.
Those with ears attuned to hush
can hear it woven through the cosmos—
a thread of stillness binding all things.
It murmurs through the breath,
each inhale a return to the source,
each exhale a release into the infinite.
It beats within the pulse,
in the quiet hymn of trembling hearts,
in the spaces between notes
where music finds its meaning.
In silence, the soul remembers
its origin—
a fragment of the infinite,
a spark of the eternal.
It is here, in the quiet,
that we hear the voice of the unseen,
the language of the unspoken,
the song of the uncreated.
Silence is not emptiness,
but fullness—
a presence too vast to be contained,
a stillness too deep to be measured.
It is the breath before the word,
the pause before the step,
the space between thoughts
where the infinite spills into the finite.
Listen—
beneath the noise,
beneath the chaos,
beneath the weight of the world,
silence sings.
Original Poem by Mohammad Younus (February 2, 2025)
Adapted by Rev. Kelsey Sherazi
My Soul Waits in Silence
For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah
Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.
Psalm 62:5-8, 11-12
A Blessing for Your Week
Beloved Child of God,
In the busy-ness of your life,
As you rush from activity to activity,
Surrounded by the noise of a techonological world,
May you notice the sound of sheer silence when it greets you.
May it cradle you and remind you of your origin
Of the uncreated God creating still.
May you hear within it the loving voice of the Creator God,
May you find it when you need it most,
And as you hear the sound of sheer silence,
May you experience all the peace and possibility it brings.
Amen.
Rev. Kelsey Sherazi 