When You’re Quiet and Still I woke up early one fall morning before the sun had risen and in spite of the darkness outside, decided to go ahead and take my regular morning walk. The streetlights were still on in my neighborhood as I walked down the shadowed streets to a wooded area not too far from my home. The first light of morning was just beginning to illuminate the sky as I found a pathway through the woods to an open area. I sat down on a large log and began to spend time quietly meditating and praying in preparation for the day ahead. Because it was chilly that morning, I had put on a hooded jacket and pulled the hood over my head to keep warm. As I sat there, quiet and still, a very peculiar thing happened. A robin flew down out of a nearby tree and landed on my head. I suppose in the darkness my shadowy silhouette looked like a lifeless stump to the bird. I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt the creature land on my head, and I quickly rose to my feet. I wasn’t the only one who “freaked out” that morning. The startled robin chirped loudly and flew off, wondering what kind of strange stump she
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had just landed upon. After regaining my composure, I let out a laugh of embarrassed amusement, sat back down on the log and mused about what had just happened. I was reminded of an important fact about nature that morning ... when you’re quiet and still, things come to you. When my daughter was 3 years old, we were sitting in the grass in our backyard feeding bread crumbs to a small flock of sparrows. She was sitting in my lap. The sparrows were flying in and hopping closer and closer to us as we fed them. I cautioned my daughter, “If you’ll be really quiet and still they will come right up to us to be fed.” She giggled and got more and more excited the closer they came.
