Skip to main content

Holy Solitude: Silence Week



Comments

  1. Thank you, Betty, for sharing. I have found that the break from sound can be a sweet relief, but at other times it can almost be deafening. Does God use the quiet to work on us? I am a firm believer that God indeed does use the quiet: to let us hear something new, something we need to learn, something we need to remember.
    Today, as we are called to give Alms (sacrificial giving), where are you going to seek to give today? Will it be a significant tip at a coffee shop later? Will it be a gift to a nature conservancy that helps maintain spaces that we can go to in nature for that silence?
    As I write, the birds are calling in the backyard. Are they calling to us today? Is God using the birds to remind us of the nature all around, needed protection?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pondering the journey

Betty Hollister writes Judi assured me this week would be easier—more about a journey, maybe even something as simple as a walk in nature.  Ok.  Maybe. I admitted to her that even though I didn’t “like” the week of “Solitude and Struggle,” it did make me think, and I liked that.  And, the thinking, of course, didn’t stop this week.   Monday’s lesson reminded us how Jesus sought solitude by walking away from the crowds after periods of “greatest exertion or emotional distress. ”  That made complete sense.  If Jesus, fully human, but also fully divine, needed time alone to talk to His father and renew his strength to heal the next in line or preach to the next crowd that made complete sense.  Even Tuesday’s suggestions about labyrinth walks to “get lost in God’s creation” made sense to me.  Then, I read about the “blue-gray-green monks” who turned that color due to hardship and fasting and Mary of Egypt who wandered for decades alone in th...

Holy Saturday

From Rachel Matthews - Today I have been chopping, measuring, mixing, cooking, mixing some more, kneading, baking, waiting, waiting, tasting, arranging, cleaning, preparing.....and preparing....for guests. It is what you do at a funeral. Either you are preparing to serve and comfort the bereaved or, as the bereaved, you are preparing to receive the community, the family, the loved ones to walk with you to the grave and back again. Holy Saturday feels like the days before a funeral. Suspended between death and life, you just carry on. You work, as usual, but not. That's what the women who loved the Rabbi were doing: preparing the spices, arranging the body (Christ's body), wrapping, loving and weeping, and waiting, and waiting and preparing....for guests. I am giddy thinking about the surprise that awaited them - the Guest!! And, I am giddy waiting for our guests to come to our home. My boys won't be here, so there is grief. I miss them so much. But, the new Amer...

Friday Fast #2

I have to admit that I have not been looking forward to this fast from sound from the moment I read about it. While I am an introvert, needing time to recharge by myself, I also really don’t like extended periods of silence. I often have the TV on around the house, listen to audiobooks and podcasts and amuse myself by watching videos at my desk over the lunch hour. I am going to do my best to avoid all of that today.   In fact, because we had invited some friends to go to the movies this evening, I started my fast from extraneous sounds last night. I felt a bit cheated, not getting to watch the Olympics and the US women win the gold in hockey, but really do they need another viewer? Why does missing something on TV bother me so? We don't have a DVR at home, so when I miss it I usually just end up skipping a show, but maybe I watch too much TV.  Am I way too caught up in other people’s lives and accomplishments? Do I need to watch the news every day? What could I be doing ...