Good morning…
We discussed chapter two in our book for the semester, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton. Solitude. Creating Space for God. For me, this felt like an inviting chapter title.
As always, we began our prayer time with several moments of silence to listen more keenly to the birds, our breath, the breeze. Then I broke our silence with this opening quote from the chapter.
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The soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of the tree, and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might put in an appearance. – Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
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At the end of our dynamic discussion, I read aloud the final segment of chapter two.
“Sit quietly at the base of the tree that is your life and begin to notice what is true about you these days,” I heard myself say. “Don’t rush to try to make things happen. Let your soul venture out and say something to you that perhaps you have had a hard time acknowledging: Is there a particular joy you are celebrating? A loss you are grieving? Are there tears that have been waiting to be shed? A question that is stirring? An emotion that needs to be expressed?”
“Sit with what comes into your awareness, becoming conscious of God’s presence with you in that awareness,” I continued quietly. “Don’t try to do anything with what you are knowing except to be with it. (In other words, don’t scare it away.) Feel the difference between trying to fix it and just being with it. Feel the difference between doing something with it and resting with it. Feel the difference between trying to fight it and letting God fight for you. What does it mean for you to be still and let God fight (or work) for you in this particular area?”
“Practice this way of entering into solitude regularly until it becomes routine for you to begin your times in solitude by being quiet and letting your soul come out and then rest in God’s presence,” I concluded. “You will likely be surprised at what your soul wants to say to God.”
Perhaps while you are there, you will seek the Lord your God. You will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29, NIRV).
…Sue…
