I Love This...

This is a quote from Pablo Neruda that is shaping the 4th Sunday Worship Service at church tomorrow. Can we find "huge silence"?


And now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still…
For once on the face of the earth let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines,
we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with ire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade,
doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.)
If we were not so single indeed about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve, and you keep quiet and I’ll go.
-- Pablo Neruda

There is a song by Snow Patrol called "Chasing Cars" that says

"If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world.
Forget what we're told before we get too old.
Show me a garden that's bursting into life.
Let's waste time chasin' cars around our heads.
I need your grace to remind me to find my own."

This is what I crave.