The blessing of emptiness

Wayne Muller makes this comment in a recent email.

This is one of our fears of quiet; that if we finally stop and listen, we will hear only emptiness. Terrified we are not good enough, not whole enough inside, we will be forever reluctant to stop, afraid of this lurking emptiness, this terrible, aching void with nothing to fill it.

Here's the thing: Emptiness is precisely what we will find, and it is not even a bad thing. This emptiness has nothing at all to do with our value or our worth. All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet, hollow reed through which the wind of spirit blows and makes the music that is our life. Without emptiness, we are clogged and stuck, unable to give birth to music, love or kindness. All creation springs from emptiness: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void . . .

OK
I admit it 

This is not how my brain
my emotional system work
 
Oh yes, 
I know the fear of emptiness
the  fear of the quiet,
which I know I share

look at our whole culture
we are constantly  "wired"
cell phones
 iPads
iPods

so many of us walk around with "buds"
in our ears
filling any potential empty space in our head with sounds
we leave the TV on, filling the space

no, we don't like emptiness
that space in which the spirit has room to move
and rattle
and chaos

and yet it may that space we need
that stillness
to feel the movement of the Spirit
and hear that still small voice

that lets us know
we are not ultimately
alone