Editorial March 27, 1995 Issue

A yearning for quietness

William E. Moody

Genuine quiet, a stillness deep in one's heart, seems to be increasingly difficult to come by in today's world. And it's all too apparent that many have not yet found it.

For example, there was the recent movie Nell, released in January in the United States. It includes a powerful scene that depicts a judicial hearing to determine whether Nell, who had grown up with no contact with the outside world, should have institutional care. At one point in the proceedings, Nell speaks for herself and confronts the townspeople gathered in the courtroom. She poignantly tells them of what she has perceived as their own need. Nell says that they don't look into each other's eyes, that they are hungry for quietness.

Another example—in his latest book, Field Notes, Barry Lopez includes a short story where the narrator describes a stranger whose life and ways aren't easily comprehended by others in the small community. Yet the narrator sees something in the man that intrigues him and draws him to the stranger. Years later, he finally discovers what it is when he finds the man at prayer in the wilderness during a rainstorm: "The complete stillness, a silence such as I had never heard out of another living thing, an unbroken grace."^{Field Notes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), p. 22 .}