Ever notice how hard it is to sit in silence? I don’t mean sitting quietly; I mean sitting in silence. I mean clearing your head, emptying your thoughts, slowing down your whole mentality so that you can sit in utter silence. Get those voices in your head to pipe down. Stop biting your nails and fidgeting with your feet; no more wiggling and squirming and yawning and stretching – those are all distractions from the silence.
It’s not such an advantage to be a go-getter when you’re trying to sit in silence. If you’re going to “go get” the objective, you have to do more than just pause: you have to stop. You have to feel the silence all the way to your toes, keep blinking (sleep is not the same as silence, I don’t care what my body tells me), and trust that the world won’t end just because you stop for a brief respite.
Try it. Silence is therapeutic. The ensuing chaos of your life will be bearable because you renewed yourself in the silence.
When I was younger and our church had hired our first youth minister, I went on a lenten retreat in Laredo. The brothers there from the Community of St John (it was their retreat center – convent before the sisters moved across the street) taught us about their desert day. One day a week they would have a day of silence. It was the most beautiful thing.
Whenever I am on retreat now (with the woman who was my youth minister at the time), I always check the schedule first thing for our desert day.
Desert day…love it Laura! One of these days, I’m going to have to go on retreat. (Just think how much I will have to write about then!!!)