On The Christian Journey

“Be still and know that I Am God.” (Psalm 46:10) The author of that Psalm had a deep encounter with the creator. In the last Logos, I told of my encounter with powers of 10. That article came to me during a period of stillness recently, almost effortlessly taking care of an overdue task on my to-do list! You see, the other day I reclaimed a practice, a practice of balance and renewal, of prayer, centering and deep rest, a practice of Sabbath. A student at WSU and I have committed to sharing a time of contemplative prayer several times a week. What we do is visit briefly, perhaps share a few verses of Scripture, a common prayer or creed, and then we sit.

 

We sit in silence, perhaps focused on a word or phrase or our breathing, but mainly stilling ourselves and listening. We started with 20 minutes. Sounds long, so far has been amazingly short! In our society, simply sitting still is something of a lost art. Listening is something of a lost art. I am not terribly good at it; I tend to gravitate towards active forms of prayer like labyrinths and spoken word. And yet there is some great wisdom in silence. As much as I value silence and stillness, I’m not wired for it. I find it nearly impossible to do alone, but sharing the practice with another, in a dedicated space, it has become almost easy and quite refreshing.

Selah!