Wednesday, April 15, 2009
silence
This weekend, I read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Part of the book (which chronicles the true adventures of the author while she spends a year trying to find “balance” in her life) takes place in an ashram in India. In the ashram, she spends a lot of time (no surprise) meditating, and she talks in the book about her experience of learning to still her mind. Which has got me thinking – I am not very good at stilling my mind. I don’t just sit and try to listen to God. Even when I am praying, which I don’t do enough, I am always talking. Or else I multi-task – praying while working out or while biking to work or while trying to drift off to sleep. Never just listening. I would probably benefit from sitting in silence. But the thought of trying to add that to my schedule stresses me out. How sad is that?
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6 comments:
I read this recently too and it provided some food for thought. I really enjoyed reading it.
After reading it was when I went to a Taize weekend, where I got some help being silent. : )
Then I took up meditating on Divine Love for Lent. I didn't actually do it every day...kinda petered out. But I wanted to share this to say, I set my goal for only 5 minutes a day. Of just being silent and listening/receiving God's love. If you set small enough goals, you could make it a habit without having to fight through a major schedule change. Then as you feel the benefits, you'd probably do it for longer anyway!
My two cents. : )
I was thinking about your Taize weekend, b/c I think that if I were to do any kind of meditation training, I'd like at least my first one to be in a Christian context.
yeah, that was pretty much my thought too. Dunno when you'd have the opportunity, but do check Taize out if you ever get the chance!
Some of the best time I've spent has been sitting in silence with others. When I was living in England we would often spend our chapel time sitting in silence. There is something truly amazing and magical about the experience. I don't know why. Try it if you can. Often we would hold hands and create a circle, sometimes we would just sit. I continue to value and love that time that I spent in silence. I should also do it more often.
I am at peace with my ADD, some of us are just wired differently.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses.
Anyways, ignore as necessary...
See season 4 of BSG yet?
I am pseudo mourning.
I agree that we all have strengths and weaknesses, but I don't feel like it's fair to whine that God never talks to me if I never stop and listen. I've also found that my baby steps towards introducing silence in my life helps me to be more intentional in the other areas (stay tuned for blog post on living in the moment, coming soon to a handbasket near you . . .).
We are waiting until they bundle BSG 4.0 and 4.5 together. Watching Dark Angel at the moment (good ol' dystopia in the not-so-distant future). I will be sad when BSG is over, but glad that they are ending when it's still strong instead of dragging it into ridiculousness, as so many shows that fight to stay alive do.
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