One thing that has changed in me that has turned my world inside out is daily meditation. I did this to a very small extent in TN but now those times listening in complete silence and stillness have grown to overwhelming proportions. Its much like physical exercise and everyday it is hard but I am able to do it for longer and with more concentration. It's an absolute necessity and I do it every morning from anywhere like 15min to maybe even and hour or more. Complete silence, complete stillness! It is nearly inconceivable in the States. The hardest part I feel is not making it a formula for "summoning" God on up or something, but instead bringing myself to absolute desperation for the Lord and then crying out for him. I want to tell you all of this because I want to encourage you to try it. Praying and speaking in my mind is also something that is not enough, my breakthroughs come from when I am actually listening with my whole spirit. Listening, not speaking! I can hardly find how it happens in my world of tasks and checklists. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. It has become something that has attached to my life and expanded.
I was at an island for a midterm retreat and sat in silence on these rocks where the sea was washing up, and I just sat and heard God's voice teaching me about everything, the connectedness of life and re-centering my thoughts, my desires, my tendencies and addictions. What is peace? Now that I have felt it, steady, constant, unmistakable for anything else, I now find how useless and superficial my earlier ideas about it were. Most of all God has taught me what love means and how to love. What an overloaded word it can be when it is one of the purest and most difficult tasks we can take on. We all talk of it, but how little do we know of it except to feel it on us? To love more fully and more purely, there is no end to how much we can love.
2 comments:
I wonder if thats even possible for me? I will post if I succeed in staying still/quiet/unstimulated by whathaveyou.
I miss you man, hope you are doing awesome and working out what God wants. Me and Britt have been checking out this new little small church, you will have to check it out next time you're within 100 miles of my longitude!
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Daniel
Take advantage of it now! Once you have children in your life, silence is a thing of the past. (Just trust me on this!) Can't wait for June when you'll be back. We're going to try to plan a reunion of all "our" kids. Hopefully you'll be there (although none of you are kids anymore, I guess).
Love ya, Chris Branch
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