IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

There was a hit song in the 1950’s entitled, “ In The Still Of The Night”. This writing is not about this song, but it is about the still of the night, when I was working on the midnight shift.

In the department where I worked, there were about ten of us located in different areas where concentration was an essence pertaining to our job performance. In

this delicate atmosphere of quietness, each person was isolated in a cubicle to maintain a high level of perfection.

This one evening as I worked on a difficult task, I heard this noise distracting my attention. A cricket had entered my area, and was making a chirping noise. It wouldn’t go away, so after a while I stopped what I was doing and tried to find the little bugger. I spotted the cricket hopping along in my cubicle and with a swift swish of my foot, he was flattened. I picked up the cricket and discarded it into the trash. No more noise. All quiet. About fifteen minutes later, I thought about what I had done. This little cricket singing his song, just trying to be a friend to someone.

I felt so bad, I went back to the trash to find the cricket, took him out and held this little bug and said, “I’m sorry”. I gently set it back into the trash and began to think, “I could have captured the cricket and set him outside with his friends”.

In these moments, compassion finds us too late.

You may think. What does it matter. It’s only a bug. Well, If your not compassionate in little things, how can you be compassionate in big things. In unguarded moments, is when compassion finds us, calling to your heart for action in unexpected situations. With this thought in mind, I am now more aware and sensitive to little things, even little critters that God has given us.

On warm summer nights, I step outside in the dark and listen to the night sounds,

the concert of the night, of crickets, the cicadas and watch the twinkling of the fireflies. It is nature that calls us to open that protective barrier, to see, to feel, to know that God is near. For me, the cricket at work affected me in such a way, that so many years later, I write about it here.

So, as the night-time symphony continues playing sounds to no-one, I am here. A little cricket brought me here. Remembrance of that little bugger, seeps into my thoughts; the symphony of sounds, missing one helper to create the perfect tune.

You may think this is all melodramatic, but this is what sensitivity does. It unlocks our senses to observe more closely  to those on our path of journey. Some people I meet are in a spiral, going nowhere. For it is in the stillness before the storm for those seeking refuge from uncertainty. Like the cricket being pursued, just trying to exist, before catastrophe strikes, before the shoe drops.

And so, sensitivity brings my thoughts to the echo’s of the past, in the still of the night, Jesus praying in the garden. Betrayed. They came for Him. They took Him away. A night of terror. Fear. Sweats of blood.

And if I awake during the night with broken dreams, my thoughts dwell upon our Lord’s anguish in the garden, and pray, three  Our Father’s, three Glory Be’s, three Hail Mary’s, in remembrance, when Jesus was alone, in the still of the night.

Robert J Varrick

 rjvarrick@gmail.com