Thursday, January 19, 2012
Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet...
...I just always wanted to use that as a headline. (you did too if you are honest with yourself.) There is a good reason though. Lynne Baab at Think Christian writes on one of my favorite Psalms:
I fins I need such very out of the way places to be really still - tend to fall asleep.
But then, that's the reason I like "quiet" better. Quiet I have, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone - a lot of times with a cat in my lap. (They do not give me an option.)
We need to remember that God is omnipresent. We don't have to find Him, we just have to listen.
Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10We all have our places. I first discovered those words written on a cross located at 13,000 feet on Mt Princeton in Colorado - a truly wonderful place to be still (or be "quiet" as the KJV puts it.) Problem is, that is not a place I get to very often.
I’m early for dinner at a friend’s house. She lives in the upstairs apartment in a big old house, and on her front porch is a table and two chairs. I decide to sit on her porch for 15 minutes, until the time we had planned that I would arrive. I settle into one of the chairs, hoping that these 15 minutes might give me the opportunity to enjoy God’s presence and God’s world.
Two huge camellia bushes with shiny leaves shelter the front porch. I can see out, but the few people passing on the street don’t see me. Two women walk by, chatting. I can hear their voices but not their words. Two different birds are singing. I find myself wondering why I never learned to identify bird songs. A man walking three black and white dogs, and carrying a big handful of plastic bags, passes by on the other side of the street. I hear the noise of a plane overhead. A minute passes, then comes the noise of another plane.
I hear a car pull into a driveway. I see a man get out, and then I hear his footsteps as he walks toward his house, coupled with the clink of dishes. From his house? From someone else’s?
The cool air of the shaded porch washes over me. I marvel that God knows all the people, animals and sounds in this neighborhood. I try to rest in the wonder of that fact, but my mind races on to other thoughts.
I am so very bad at sitting still in God’s presence.
I fins I need such very out of the way places to be really still - tend to fall asleep.
But then, that's the reason I like "quiet" better. Quiet I have, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone - a lot of times with a cat in my lap. (They do not give me an option.)
We need to remember that God is omnipresent. We don't have to find Him, we just have to listen.
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