Relish, Embrace, Use Silence

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Did you ever try to read words without spaces between them?  It is hard to make sense of it all.  I was listening to someone who read like this the other day and it made me dizzy.  There were lots of words but very little meaning.

And then I started to think that this is what my life is like some days -- like one run-on sentence that is difficult to decipher or make sense of.  I go from activity to activity and meeting to meeting without really processing what I have seen or heard. 

Sometimes we feel like good stewards if we are really busy.  In fact, some of my people who are the most concerned about the poor and the sick and those less fortunate and the world and the war and the ... well, you know yourselves, don't have time to worship.  I know it is not because they love God less than those of us who show up to worship.  Somehow they think that the doing will not get done if they slow down and take some time with God.

Reading and speaking only makes sense with the right pauses.  Life is like that too.  It is the silence between the activity that gives meaning to all of it.  Think about it for a minute.  Every new and creative thought comes out of the silence and not out of the constant stream of commentary in your brain.  God breaks into the silence to talk to us.

To be good stewards of all that God has given us we need to make use of other gifts that God has given us: the gifts of prayer and meditation and worship.  In our time with God and our time with the gathered community we are renewed and strengthened and reminded again why we do what we do.

There is a story about a woman who goes to a spiritual teacher and talks about her unhealthy diet.  The teacher tells her to come back in two weeks.  And then he tells her to give up sugar.  She says, "Why did you wait two weeks to give me that simple advice?"  He said, "I had to give it up myself before I could tell you too."

I only have a summer's jump on you in the meditation department.  Actually some of you are probably more regular in your prayer habits than I am.  Pastors are as guilty as everyone else of thinking that they have to look busy.  Maybe it is having so many bosses.  I have been intentional about my time in silence and it has enriched my life and made the activity more meaningful.

Offer back to the Lord a portion of the time that the Lord has given you.  Come back to worship this fall and spend more time with God.  All those things that need to get done, God will see to.

Lord,
We give thanks for all that you have given us.  May we use your gift of time to remember the gift of your son and praise and worship you forever.
Amen

 Copyright (c) 2003, The Rev. Dana Reardon. Used by permission.