Doing Nothing

I was at an event on Friday. We were asked to think what it would be like to do nothing for 15 minutes during the work day and then taken through a relaxation exercise. I'm pretty good at engaging with this stuff because I've had a bit of practise in both leading and participating in Ignatian meditation. The person up front challenged us to think about whether we took time out of our day to consciously relax and unwind.

When I got home the weather was fab, hot, sunny, blue skies so I took Karl Rahner into the back garden (and the cat of course!) and started to read. I've said before that you really cannot hurry Rahner, you have to read him slowly and meditatively and let him percolate, so I stopped for a bit and decided, thinking of what was said that morning, that I just needed to notice the moment. So I stopped, closed my eyes and listened. I'm very fortunate to live in the country and there are times around our house when there is virtual silence. I listened, and off in the distance was aware of the very faint hum of cars passing on a road far away; birds singing, some little song birds, some seagulls, the odd caw of a crow; the low mechanical rotor of a small plane and then the thrum of an engine of a bigger plane way up high in the skies; I heard the papery sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze, swishing and swaying; the small crack of wood expanding in the heat.

After a bit I opened my eyes and looked around, the garden looks lovely, lots of colour in the plants in the borders; the green lawn; the swallows swooping and flying high up in the blue; I watched a big white fluffy cloud evaporate over the course of a few minutes, it changed from a skull, to a dragon, to a phoenix, to a small cotton wool ball, to some wisps of white gossamer and then just disappeared; I saw the trees, the different shades of green, the different shaped leaves; the cat sleeping under my chair with it's tail sticking out; little insects, ants, small beetles and tiny spiders bustling back and forward.

Smelled the baked earth and the hot paving slabs; the smell of sunshine and outdoors; felt the breeze on my face; my feet touching the earth.

And I meditated on Rahner's words

"The doctrine of this grace and it's fulfillment, therefore, bids us keep ourselves radically open in faith, hope and love for the ineffable, unimaginable and nameless absolute future of God which is coming, and bids us never close ourselves before there is nothing more to close because nothing will be left outside of God, since we shall be wholly in God and he shall be wholly in us."

Doing nothing - I can highly recommend it.