"All travelers, somewhere along the way, find it necessary to check their course, to see how they are doing. We wait until we are sick, or shocked into stillness, before we do the commonplace thing of getting our bearings. And yet, we wonder why we are depressed, why we are unhappy, why we lose our friends, why we are ill-tempered... Who knows? God may whisper to you in the quietness what He has been trying to say to you, oh, for so long a time."
- Howard Thurman, Deep Is the Hunger
Jesus said that we could know the truth about people by looking at the fruits they are producing in their lives. Well, right now, I’m not satisfied with a lot of the fruit that I've been producing in my life. It is obvious to me that I have not been producing the fruit that comes from spending quiet time in focused meditation and prayer. I find myself overwhelmed by the thought of having too many people to pray for and too many concerns to pray about and ponder upon. I haven’t really prayed as long or as deeply as I would like to, so a lot of things worth praying for have slipped my mind. I’ve also noticed that I have put down many of my talents, gifts and abilities and have not tried to pick them back up. Don’t get me wrong…I've been getting above average grades and I have been doing a lot of studying, but I haven't done enough resting or reflecting. Ironically, while most of the books I am interested in reading are about people’s first-hand experiences and understandings of God, I find that I don’t like to set aside time to seek those experiences for myself. Many of my prayers come in the form of quick thoughts that I fire off while I am distracted by a host of other concerns and priorities. I think a lot, but I haven't been setting aside enough time in quiet solitude to practice mindfulness and increase my awareness so that I can feel deeply. I don’t feel deeply enough the Spirit of God. I don’t feel deeply enough the emotions of others.
Because of this, I have noticed my tendency to widen the distance between myself and my friends. These days, it seems I’d rather be left alone. Nowadays, it takes a lot of energy for me to be around a lot of people, especially those close to me. My friends call me but I only call back when I feel like it, which is rarely. If it wasn’t for my wife’s suggestions that I call certain friends to check on them, I wouldn’t have called them at all. What kind of friend does that make me? I keep a lot of my personal opinions and controversial views to myself for the sake of harmony, but I have grown weary knowing that people barely know me because I only reveal a small percentage of my true self to them. I see that many of my close relationships are suffering because I have grown bitter, resentful, angry and irritated due to bottling up so much of what I want to say for fear of being criticized, rejected, or accused of being a heretic. Maybe I’m frustrated by the fact that humans can’t read minds (that would make it so much easier to communicate). In many ways I feel frustrated and depressed. Maybe I need to get quiet.
It seems that at every waking moment I am in a constant and restless frenzy to fill my mind with noise and information. I can't drive to work without listening to the radio; I can't take a shower without fretting over an anxiety; I can't use the bathroom without having a book or article in my hands; I can't eat my lunch unless I'm making progress on whatever book I'm reading; I can't lay down to sleep at night without reaching for a dictionary or a book of poetry; I can’t sit down on my couch without reaching for the remote or playing on my guitar; I can't concentrate at my job because I'm constantly distracted by incoming e-mails, phone calls and my own tendencies to surf the Internet. It's like my mind can't be still. Even when I do find some quiet time, I immediately start looking for an activity to fill it with. It's almost like I fear being alone with just my thoughts.
A couple of weeks ago I did manage to find some quiet time. After I got off work and before I went to my Thursday evening seminary class, I spent ten minutes sitting outside near the forest behind the seminary I attend. I just sat there to watch and listen. I began pondering a theological question at first, but then I shifted my focus to observe the natural world all around me. I felt like something was drawing me to watch, listen and feel. I sat there breathing in the air that smelled like oncoming rain. I sat there letting my skin absorb the wave-like gusts of the invisible breeze. I sat there trying to listen to the bird songs that competed with the hum, hiss and rumble of airplanes soaring in the sky and cars moving through the streets. I sat there trying to hear how many different bird calls I could distinguish. I sat there pretending those bird rhythms were actually different pieces of a diverse orchestra working together to communicate a song to whoever would surrender their moments to hear it. I sat there attempting to calm my restless mind by looking at the vivid spring-time green of the trees. Ten minutes later, as I got up from my seat, I could feel a current of relaxation and peace coursing through my deepest places.
Ever since that moment, I have yearned for that peace again. When will I experience that calm? I need to get quiet again. What else might I find in those quiet places? Might I find that clarity of purpose that I am looking for? Might I find the One who birthed those purposes in me?
Man. I might as well have written this post. This is EXACTLY what I go through. I also can't not do anything. I read everything, in the bathroom, at work, while in the passenger seat of someone's car. Last night I was reading on symptoms of ADD and I had checked right in nearly all of them. I got paranoid and prayed for a while, but then I got to realize that it might just be the effects of another deeper issue. Reading this now makes me feel a little bit better, and confirms that cause the physical manifestations of what we are going through are darned near identical.
ReplyDelete