silence, saturday

Saturday, June 7

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

                       

Opening Prayer:

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Isaiah 30:15-18

Reading for Reflection:

 

     For most of our lives it seems—and particularly our spiritual lives—we live with a constant sense of pressure to have to make things happen.   It is a way of thinking and believing that is very subtle, and even seems noble and right at first glance, but one that is incredibly deceptive.  For, at its heart, this mode of operation says: "Everything is up to me.”  Which is really nothing more than what Parker Palmer calls “functional atheism.”  Functional atheism is the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us.  This way of thinking carries with it an enormous amount of pressure, insecurity, and anxiety.

     Isaiah is trying to open our ears to a new voice, one that says, “I cannot make anything of true value happen; that is all up to God.  He is the One in charge of salvation and growth and transformation, not me.  He is the One that causes the heart to change; that causes the seed to grow.”  Therefore, a shift must take place deep within us; a shift from trusting in ourselves to trusting in our God.  A shift from the pressure of doing to the freedom of being. 

     That appears to be what is going on in Isaiah 30.  Israel is under attack, their world filled with fear and chaos.  But instead of turning to God—the One who knows them best and loves them most, the One who longs to save them—they panic, take matters into their own hands, and run off in another direction altogether; trying to insure and/or secure their own salvation.  In fact, they turn to Egypt and beg Pharaoh (of all people) to come to their rescue.  Because when their backs are against the wall their true beliefs come out.  Instead of turning to God they turn to their own schemes, plans, and devices. 

     So God intervenes.  He comes to them and reminds them of what life with him is really all about.  “Your salvation will be found in returning and rest.  Don't try to take matters into your own hands, don't carry out plans that are not mine (Isaiah 30:1).  Turn back to me: once, twice, and always again.  For when you turn (and return) to me you will find rest.  I am the Sovereign Lord, the only one that can truly save you, the only one worthy of your trust.  Come to me.  Find rest in me.  Trust quietly in me.  For I am in control.”

     So, indeed, a shift is required—in them and in us.  A shift from trying to make things happen, to turning (and returning) constantly to God and trusting Him to work and to act.  A shift that helps us to understand that the most significant elements of living life with God are not in doing this and doing that, but in returning and rest, quietness and trust.  Those are the materials we are to build our spiritual lives out of.  So, as the old saying goes, “Don't just do something, stand there.”

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself (insert Mission info here)

                                        

Closing Prayer:

 

Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,
Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
And without any feet can go to you;
And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
And if you set this brain of mine afire,
Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.
 

                                                    ~Rainer Maria Rilke

silence, friday

Friday, June 6

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Reading for Reflection:

 

     A second, more positive, meaning of silence is that it protects the inner fire.  Silence guards the inner heat of religious emotions.  This inner heat is the life of the Holy Spirit within us.  Thus, silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive.

     Diadochus of Photiki offers us a very concrete image:  "When the door to a steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good.  Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy.  Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy.  Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts. (The Way of the Heart by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                           
Closing Prayer: For you alone, O God, my soul waits in silence; for from you alone comes my salvation.  You alone are my rock and my salvation, you alone are my fortress; I shall not be shaken.  Amen. (Psalm 62:1-2)

silence, thursday

Thursday, June 5

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

 

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Lamentations 3:19-28

Reading for Reflection:

 

Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for want of a better place).  Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelopes you…Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it.  Stop trying to compete with others.  Give yourself to God and then be what and who you are without regard to what others think…Learn to pray inwardly every moment.  After a while you can do this even while you work….Read less, but more of what is important to your inner life.  Never let your mind remain scattered for very long.  Call home your roving thoughts.  Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul.  Practice spiritual concentration.  All of the above is contingent upon a right relation to God through Christ and daily meditation on the Scriptures.  Lacking these, nothing will help us; granted these, the discipline recommended will go far to neutralize the evil effects of externalism and to make us acquainted with God and our own souls. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                         

Closing Prayer:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.

                                        ~Ranier Maria Rilke

silence, wednesday

Wednesday, June 4

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 131:1-3

Reading for Reflection:

 

     To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping, but means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you.  Silence requires the discipline to recognize the urge to get up and go again as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is close at hand.  It offers the freedom to stroll in your own inner yard, and to rake the leaves there and clear the paths so you can easily find the way to your heart.  Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when you first come upon this “unfamiliar terrain,” but slowly you will discover an order and a familiarity which deepens your longing to stay home. (With Open Hands by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                         

Closing Prayer: O God, our loving Father, let me rest in the silence and security of your strong and loving arms this day.  Help me to trust you completely—and to be occupied with nothing else but you.  Let me find my hope in you, both now and forevermore.  Amen.

silence, tuesday

Tuesday, June 3

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Habakkuk 2:18-20

Reading for Reflection:    

    

     Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing.  But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practiced and learned, in these days when talkativeness prevails.  Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue come only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.

     But this stillness before the Word will exert its influence upon the whole day.  If we have learned to be silent before the Word, we shall also learn to manage our silence and our speech during the day.

     The silence of the Christian is listening silence, humble stillness that may be interrupted at any time for the sake of humility. (Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                           

Closing Prayer: Quiet our hearts before you, O Holy God.  Shut our lips and open our eyes and our ears, that we might see you and hear you.  And let us, O Lord of heaven and earth, be transformed—molded and shaped—by what we see and hear.  Amen.

silence, monday

Monday, June 2

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

 

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Mark 1:29-39

Reading for Reflection:

 

Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our lives are in danger.  Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, without distance closeness cannot cure.  Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures.  The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and should therefore be the subjects of our most personal attention.  Let us therefore look somewhat closer, first at our life in action, and at our life in solitude. (Out of Solitude by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself (insert Mission info here)

                                         

Closing Prayer:

In the quietness of life,

When the flowers have shut their eye,

And a stainless breadth of sky

Bends above the hill of strife,

Then, my God, my chiefest Good,

Breathe upon my lonelihood:

Let the shining silence be

Filled with Thee, my God, with Thee.

(Petition and Communion, by Percy C. Ainsworth, Weavings,

Volume XXII, Number 4, July/August 2007)

silence, sunday

Sunday, June 1 (Seventh Sunday of Easter)

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of much speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

                        ~Thomas Merton

Scripture Reading for the Day: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Reading for Reflection:

What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought.  I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort…than being able from time to time to stop that chatter including the chatter of spoken prayer.  If we choose to seek the silence of the holy place, or to open ourselves to its seeking, I think there is no surer way than by keeping silent.

     God knows I am no good at it, but I keep trying, and once or twice I have been lucky, graced.  I have been conscious but not conscious of anything, not even of myself.  I have been surrounded by the whiteness of snow.  I have heard the stillness that encloses all sounds stilled the way whiteness encloses all colors stilled, the way wordlessness encloses all words stilled.  I have sensed the presence of a presence.  I have felt a promise promised.

     I like to believe that once or twice, at times like those, I have bumbled my way into at least the outermost suburbs of the Truth that can never be told but only come upon, that can never be proved but only lived for and loved. (Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                          

Closing Prayer: O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and

rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)