"The condition that the psalm puts on the experience is stillness. We need to experiment with the meaning of that. We have to learn to pause, to simply be still. It's an antidote to letting business become all of life. It's a way to live the active life contemplatively by listening, by simply stopping everything for 60 seconds a day, by quieting ourselves so that we bring gentleness and quiet into a loud and distracted world, by acknowledging interiorly, consciously, often, that God is God in the face of the fact that most of the time we really think we are."
How true. I've been e-mailing with a new friend who is also discerning a vocation. Whereas I find myself in such a positive space about it all right now, she's having a wee case of cold feet and wondering if she's on the right path. I have no doubt that she's on the right path. I think it's more a case of what Sr. Joan talks about.
We get so busy. We fill our minds with our own worries and anxieties. We don't have room for the still quiet voice of God. Even worse, sometimes we forget to let God be God. Like she says, "most of the time we really think we are" God.
It all comes down to trust. I'm writing this to remind myself as much as anything. I know the day will come soon enough when I wonder what the hell I'm doing, contemplating this crazy counter cultural choice. I hope I'll be able to remember to let God be God. God's in charge ... I'm along for the ride.
1 comment:
I also love "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him" (Psalm 37).
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