Pali-pali is a Korean phrase meaning “hurry-up.” In many ways, it defines Korean culture. Spend a few weeks in Seoul, and you’ll find out in a hurry (pun intended) what I’m talking about.
But the truth is, you don’t need to take a trip to Seoul to experience pali pali. We live in a pali-pali world. Fast-paced and noisy. As Thomas Merton says in his book, Mysticism in the Nuclear Age, “Time and peace are not easily come by in this civilization of ours” and “you cannot come to know (God) unless you have a little time and a little peace in which to pray and think about Him and study His truth.” (p.372)
This is why, in this wilderness of incessant noise and motion in which we live, we desperately need to rediscover what Merton referred to as “pregnant silence.” Silence is more than the absence of noise. Remember Elijah at Mount Horeb (another name for Mount Sinai)?
After his victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah ran to King Ahab’s palace at Jezreel. I expect he anticipated a warm greeting. Instead, Queen Jezebel had him placed on Israel’s Most Wanted list, and he fled Israel for Judah, where depressed and exhausted, he collapsed under a juniper tree. There, the angel of the Lord provided food and rest for God’s pali-pali prophet.
But do you remember what happened next? Elijah journeyed to Mount Sinai. Why? Because he wanted answers. He needed a fresh touch from his God. And since Sinai was the place where God entered into covenant with His people, it was the most likely place for Elijah to seek out God.
It’s important to note that God did not instruct Elijah to journey to Mount Sinai. In fact, in I Kings 19:9, God asks Elijah, “What are you doing here?”
Elijah’s journey to the Mountain of God was the desperate attempt of a spiritually empty man to reconnect with his God. The writer of I Kings tells the story so much better than I ever could. Here’s what he says,
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled hiS cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (I Kings 19:11-13, NIV)
That phrase “a gentle whisper” is better translated “sheer silence.”
God wasn’t found in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. God was found in “sheer silence.”
What a word this is for us in today’s pali-pali world! And this is what Thomas Merton means by “pregnant silence.”
This is the reason for what I’m calling Mystic Monday. As we begin a new week, all of us need to take time to pause and let the silent peace and presence of God saturate our souls. More than that, we need to carve out time in our lives to experience the pregnant silence in which our Lord is so often found.
Why don’t you stop what you’re doing and take time to do that now?
In Christ,
Dan
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