It's been a funny couple of months.
I finished making the Spiritual Exercises at the end of August and it's been hard making the transition into 'life as usual'. I honestly think that last year has been the most significant of my Christian journey (not sure what other word to use but becoming more dissatisfied with the 'journey' word/metaphor) so far and my sense of God and myself has been challenged and deepened in a most profound way. So coming out of that has been an adjustment as I've struggled to find a rhythm in my prayer life which isn't an hour a day for 6 days of the week. This coupled with an absolutely manic pace at work over the last few months (which looks likely to continue until at least the middle of December), a busy church schedule and a couple of months break from my Spiritual Director who was on holiday, has left praying contemplatively a challenge to say the least. It's just difficult to get my head to slow down and my thoughts to be less frenetic.
I'm still trying to make space to pray a couple of times a week but sometimes my head is, frankly, 'mince' as we say in Scotland!
I've been on holiday for a week and have still kept the slightly frantic pace - stuff I had to do - and it's taken me till today to sit in my prayer space and actually feel that I had stilled enough to hear; to receive consciously the presence of God.
I've been thinking for a few weeks about a little phrase I read which just says "learn to pause ... or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you" It's not a spiritual (actually it probably is..) phrase, it's from a stamp I use when making some little art pieces. But this morning as I started my prayer I read this quote from Mother Teresa
"We need to find God and God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature - trees and flowers and grass - grow in silence. See the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. The more we we receive in silent prayer - the more we can give in our active life."
Now far be it from me to assert my spiritual insight over Mother Teresa (think I'm well out of my depth there), but as I reflected on this I realised that it made sense to me to re-phrase this slightly;
"We need to allow God to find us and we can't be found by God in noise and restlessness"
This sense that God doesn't struggle in noise and restlessness; I do. I'm the one who needs to learn to pause so that I can become more attentive to God's voice. That is what Sabbath is. At some point - and let's face it it's probably not going to be a Sunday - we need to stop. We need to make ourselves available to be refreshed, to be immersed in the presence and peace that is only found when we stop long enough for God to encounter us.
Isaiah 30.15 says;
"In returning and rest you are saved. In keeping quiet and in confidence is your might."
Psalm 131 says;
"..Instead I have quieted and calmed myself ... like a weaned child is my soul within me"
