The Lenten season is here! This year for Lent, I’m welcoming more silence (and giving up chocolate almonds - yes, that’s a sacrifice). I recently wrote this poem about silence and offer it to you as encouragement for why we sometimes avoid the quiet in and around our lives. How do you meet silence? Silence: A Poem
by Whitney R. Simpson She is my companion yet I avoid her gaze She is my teacher yet I push back at her instruction She is my guide yet I veer from her course She is my friend yet I wonder why she comes near She is my gift and I long to savor her more fully She is inviting me to a oneness with God, listen...do you hear her? Why not? I avoid her gaze because at first she looks lonely I push back at her instruction because of my own agenda I veer from her course because I am easily distracted I wonder why she comes near because there is always another choice Yet I long to savor her like never before And once I say yes to her I receive an awareness I never knew she could introduce to me She is my companion, my teacher, my guide, my friend She is God's gift Silence What works for your life? I have a long list of things I prefer to spend my time doing both alone and with my family. Things like my morning quiet time, yoga, writing, reading, knitting, biking, kayaking, photography, thrifting, etc. Things that too often slip to the bottom of my list. This morning I awoke with my "to do" list racing through my head and yet the longing to not simply cram my day with the many tasks from my list. I woke up knowing the list must be accomplished. I also awoke knowing that I longed to make time for at least one of those preferred activities that fills me up and connects me with God. I have learned. These things keep me going. And yet I let them slip away. So I sat for a moment in the quiet, fighting the distractions of the "list" for the day. And then I settled in to the stillness and I read this poem. Stuck with another day, God speaks. I just have to slow down and listen.
For me, preference it is today - to the things that worked before. The "to do" list already seems easier to tackle. Thirst
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning. — Mary Oliver, Thirst Beacon Press, Boston, 2006, pp. 1, 52, 69 |
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