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 .}

The Bible speaks of such quietness—a stillness in which there is not only rest and peace but also power. "In quietness and in confidence," the book of Isaiah proclaims, "shall be your strength" (30:15).

This quietness, this powerful stillness, is a spiritual quality that is really found only in our relationship with God. Through the Science of Christ, one learns that God is the creator of all good and that each of us is inseparable from that good. We are, in fact, each the expression of God, of good itself, as His spiritual reflection, the idea of infinite Mind. God—divine Life, Truth, and Love—is the God of peace, of comfort, of grace. And He tenderly bestows all of these on man. This is our true heritage as the sons and daughters of God.

The reality of God's universe confirms the fact that, as the man of His creating, you and I can never be without the peace and dominion—the spiritual quietness—that constitute the atmosphere in which we live and move, in which we have our very being as God's likeness. Acknowledging this truth and understanding its implications provide the basis for demonstrating it more fully here and now, regardless of our circumstances.

I know someone who, in the midst of a serious personal crisis, continued praying, earnestly seeking God's direction and affirming the Father's constant care. He said that, at the darkest hour, there was a moment when he tangibly felt the grace of God. He was at peace, with a quiet confidence that God would show him the way through. This quietness and conviction of God's guidance became the man's strength. In due course the crisis was resolved. The peace remained.

The New Testament tells of another man who needed quietness. He is sometimes known as the Gadarene, a man who "always, night and day, ... was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones" (see Mark 5:1–15). When this wildly troubled man met Christ Jesus, however, the Gadarene surely found that he was standing in the presence of someone of tremendous spiritual power, someone who clearly embodied the peace of God. Here, in fact, was the Prince of Peace. Jesus confidently cast the devils, the lies of mind apart from God, out of the Gadarene; and when the local people came to see what had happened, they found the man "... sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind." That man had discovered, through Christ, the supreme stillness of divine Mind.

As we experience the genuine peace and quietness of heart that come from understanding our relation to God, this isn't something that relegates the Christian's life to a purposeless existence, self-absorbed, removed from mankind and uninvolved in helping to meet the urgent needs of our world today. Rather, this quietness provides a center, a sanctuary, and a constant resource of power that serves as a foundation for accomplishing real good in the world. It is a resource for healing. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written, "The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 93).

Quietness, a place of unyielding grace, does exist today, even in the midst of a clamoring, confused world. Divine Truth reveals it to each of us. If you are hungry for stillness, open your heart to the reality of your own relationship to God. His Christ is already feeding you with divine peace.

William E. Moody