Skip to main content

shhhhhh


Dean is away on a business trip. This time, I am feeling his absence more than usual.  Perhaps because I am not slammed with work like I was last year - I actually have some time to re-create.  The only problem is that there is no one to party with, except the cat.  Last night, I finished my reading by 8 pm and turned on the television.  American Idol was on.  Not having followed it ever, really, I decided to give it a watch.  Hmmm.  Having spent the day reading about the incredible, multi-dimensional, surprising, invitational drama in which God lavishes his love on creation, it seemed trite and inconsequential.  The popcorn was good, though.

Another reason that I feel the solitude weighing on me this week is because I have neglected to nurture it lately.  I recently watched The Big Silence, a BBC series about a Dominican father who asks 5 people to embrace silence in their lives and see what effect it has.  One of the challenges these busy, 21st century multi-taskers have to face is 8 days of silence at a Jesuit retreat centre. After the first day there, tempers are short, complaints run high, and grumpiness abounds - reactions that show how averse we are to facing ourselves, the lack of peace we have in our circumstances, and how we view the presence of God as either boring or instrusive. 

Silence is not easy.  There is no entertaining music, no movies, no pubs to go to with friends, no phones, no stressful work, nothing but our thoughts...and the presence of God.  Perhaps it is not surprising that all 5 of the volunteers, after a few days of silence, began to face some of their inner fears, wrestle with inner traumas, and acknowledge inner questions that they had been too busy to pay attention to before.  The followers of Jesus who first fled to the mountain caves in Egypt to live in solitude (starting the monastic movement) knew the value of getting away from distractions.  Too often, they mask our inner turmoil and cause us to substitute activity for real, lasting peace.

So this week, I am trying to embrace the silence more.  To make space in my studying, in my rising up and going to sleep, in my relaxation, and most of all, in my thoughts, turning them more often to God.  I want to recognize the places I need healing and wholeness, to face hidden fears and places of unrest, and to walk quietly with Jesus, letting him talk instead of pestering him with constant chatter and questions.  It is not an easy discipline, but it is food for one's soul.

"Be still and know that I am God."  - from Psalm 46:10

the photo:  a lone tree in the desert near Joshua Tree National Park, California.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go...
3 comments
Read more

Esther's protest

I have been hesitant to write anything here pertaining to the student protests in Montreal, partly because I didn't believe I had any solutions to offer and partly because I just wanted to stay out of the controversial mess it has become.  Besides, I have studying to do.  But this weekend, something changed.  I read the book of Esther. First, some background:  the unrest started early in the year when a group of students decided to protest the tuition hikes proposed by the Quebec government ($325 a year for the next 5 years).  Seeing that tuition rates have been frozen for almost ten years, it seemed reasonable to the government to increase them to reflect rising costs.  This did not sit well with some students, and they organised an ongoing protest in which students were encouraged to boycott classes and refuse to hand in assignments.  It has now grown into a movement which has staged several organise...
9 comments
Read more

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun.  I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading.  One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others).  Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding.  Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity.   In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007.   “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’   C...
10 comments
Read more