Negotium (Heart Silence)

Latin is the coolest language I think there has ever been. The words have a really contemporary feel about them and the meanings behind the words and phrases are superbly complex yet simply profound.

Hard at work in my work room writing today, I came across an amazing Latin word, a word that will be familiar to monastics throughout the ages, but probably not so to twenty first century societies.

The word is negotium.

And it has a truly remarkable resonance for those of us who live life to the full or fill our lives with lots of stuff.

Negotium means freedom from busyness or business.

O boy I could do with a slice of that!

Why do we get so busy?

I’m reading a fantastic book right now called ‘The simplified life’ by Verena Schiller, a nun who for twenty five years lived the life of a hermit in an extremely remote part of Wales.

She actually mentions the word negotium, meaning freedom from busyness or business, and she says that true negotium flows out of stillness and silence.

She is talking about an inner silence or an interior stillness. She is talking about stillness deep inside our being.

In our soul.

A silence inside of us so profound that no matter where we are, in the city, at work, or wherever, we can still escape the busyness or the business of our lives.

A nineteenth century Indian guy called Sri Ramak used to describe the mind as a mighty tree filled with monkeys, all swinging from tree to tree and all in a constant cacophony of chatter and movement.

I don’t know about you but I feel like my head is full of that kind of riotous confusion sometimes?
All those chattering monkeys in your mind leap out of the business or busyness of the day.

How do we bring this constant head-clutter to stillness and silence within us?

Is there a way? I think there is.

Yesterday my morning was just mad! I had to cut two lawns before I went to work. Let me tell you I hate cutting grass! But I’m going to Spain next week for two weeks and I just had to do it, otherwise we would be coming back to something that resembled a mini urban jungle. After that I had a mountain of emails to work through. As I was reading and replying to emails, my mobile phone kept ringing or notifying! Texts, more emails and calls just kept coming. I started to write a contribution towards my dissertation, intending to write about 1000 words. Just as I started I knocked a full cup of tea over my writing bench sending the dark brown liquid every which way and into what seemed like every nook and cranny my desk has on it. For those who know me I am not a very domesticated kind of guy! So I wiped it up with a clean tea towel (Please don’t tell Dawn!) the doorbell rang twice, just salesmen trying to flog gas or something, the house phone rang three times (I didn’t bother answering) and then someone’s car alarm started going off in the street.

In the end?

I gave up with the writing for the morning.

I decided to seek some quiet.

I got in the car and drove down to my favourite spot in Durham. An old ruined abbey that lies beside a crystal clear slow-running river with gorgeous rock faces and wooded areas lining the watersides.

On a good day total silence happens here.

And today it was deadly silent.

I took in the calm. But the chattering monkeys in my mind were not quiet.

I began to pray.

It must have taken a good ten minutes for the cacophony of noise that flows out of the business or busyness of the day to settle down and more importantly quieten down.

As I prayed my senses settled in a more serene place, my mind and my heart quietened. And within fifteen minutes I was connected and deep in oneness with God.

Prayer led me to a place of inner silence.

John Main in his book ‘Word into silence’ says, meditation and prayer brings a distracted mind to stillness and silence.

and I guess he's right?

An inner silence.

Negotium.

A freedom from busyness and business.

It’s a simple blog post today guys I know.

But I think that maybe God wants to remind us that stillness inside of ourselves is important if we really want to hear from him.

Be still and know that I am God? (Psalm 46: 10)

Does that sound like just what you need?