Noisy and Crowded or Silent and Spacious

I try to pay attention to rhythms of work and rest in my life and the life of the blog. There seems to come a natural time to slow down, do less and create Sabbath space. I have been reflecting deeply the last week as I prepared for Ash Wednesday and Lent to arrive. I have been discerning what my Lent practice needs to be. This time of discernment has made it clear that my life has been fairly noisy and busy of late and I have been craving quiet and spaces of silence more and more.

It is this awareness of my fairly noisy life that has led me to decide to take Lent to explore silence and space. To find a better balance of both in my life and let myself rest and restore for a busy season of caregiving that will arrive post Easter.

As I enter this season of silence and space I have decided to have Chaplainhood take a Sabbath rest as well. I will return to sharing my words and heart with you all sometime after Easter.  Until then one last poetic reflection



FORGIVE MY NOISE 

God, Christ, Spirit,
Forgive me for not hearing
Your words of wisdom and guidance.

Forgive me for filling my life
with so much noise
and "important to dos"
that I have forgotten the
importance of Holy Silence
and just being.

Help me to be passionate
about finding space
for this Holy Silence and being.
The place that quiets
all my "should dos"
and helps me find the
energizing and co-creative living actions.
AMEN

Noise - Quiet - Silence

Noise, Quiet, Silence
You can not have one
with out the other.

The noise in our lives
informs the kind of
quiet we seek.

The Quiet we find
informs the
Silence we create.

To silence noise
is to find quiet.

To reflect on the
types of noise that
batter the ears and
the soul
is to discover what
our restorative silence
is to be like.

Quite is simply
reducing the noise.

Silence is being able
to still ourselves
amidst the noise
and experience
The Divine.

Lord,
May I seek not just quiet
but also embrace silence
so that I may relate
to my noise world
from a place of response
rather than reaction.
                 AMEN.

Come Sit With Me

Come sit with me in silence.
Please do not feel the need
to fill it with words.

Come sit with me in silence.
Be willing to open yourself
to feel what my silence tells.

Come sit with me in silence.
Please listen deeply to it.

Come sit with me in my silence,
because it speaks the words
I can not voice.

It is only after being with me in my silence
that I will feel you are ready
to hear the words of my heart.

It is only after sitting with me in my silence
that you will be ready to understand my words.

Inspired by a line from a poem the poem "If you don't understand my silence you won't understand my words" by Emma Marriott.

The Words Went On Vacation

Ok, it’s confession time.  I spend a fair amount of time in my life promoting self-care and keeping balance in life.  I’m sure I’ve even written about it at least once here at Chaplainhood.  But lately – like the whole last month of June it has felt like I have been going full out for the entire month.  I had way to many “irons in the fire” and did just too much just trying to survive the day, week, and month.  And now it is July 1 and I have no idea how it got here so fast.

I am tired, and every time I have sat down to write a post I get one or two sentences out and then the brain shuts down and refuses to put forth any more creativity. It seems that for now the words of my soul have decided to take a vacation. And I have finally stopped long enough to listen to the wisdom that comes in the silence of no words to write.

July is a tender month for me; it is the month of Hope’s death and each July I know I need to give an extra measure of grace to myself. And so once again I am extending a measure of grace in allowing the silence of my usual creative writing to just be what it is, silent. I have decided to let my creative writing take the vacation it has already gone on and will be taking the month of July off here at Chaplainhood.

I will be back at the writing thing again in early August with hope for a restored creative spirit. So in the mean time, May blessings surround you wherever your July journeys take you.