For our Lenten meditation today we might consider how to find silence and solitude and real quality quiet time with God in a world where you can’t pump gas in your car without being subjected to the “f bomb” being blasted out of some dude’s Batmobile at 120 decibels.
And then there’s the loud clowns shouting each other down at Fox News and MSNBC.
Lord help us all–we need quality, spiritual quiet time to cope with it all.
So let’s meditate on the importance of silence and solitude as spiritual tonics.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved.
God will help it when the morning dawns. . . .
Be still, and know that I am God!”
— From Psalm 46
Jesus was always withdrawing from the noise and demands of the masses in order to find silence and solitude–and that in order to re-connect with the Father/Mother/Creator.
The world is noisier than ever and I’m ok with noise as long as I have some control over it. I like my rock and roll–this blog is called Jitterbugging for Jesus after all–and rock is made to be played loud.
But I never know when I dart into a Walgreens or CVS what kind of god-awful music might be inflicted on me, quite possibly at 90 decibels.
I never thought I’d miss “elevator music,” but at least it was soft and low and you weren’t necessarily aware of it even playing.
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And then there’s the guy who rumbles up to the gas pumps with the nastiest and most violent “music” imaginable blaring at ear-piercing volumes, with a thumping bass line that rattles the earth.
This is why I don’t own a gun; not that I would shoot the guy. I would just blow up his music box and get arrested and then would have to try to explain this not only to a judge, but worse than that, explain my less than pastoral behavior to the bishop.
“God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change , though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. tough its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.” — from Psalm 46
We don’t all have to be monks or monkish-like in our spiritual life, although we could do a lot worse than to practice something like Benedictine spiritual disciplines (click here).
But taking real, intentional, significant amounts of time for some silence and solitude in our prayer and meditation time is the spiritual tonic that empowers us to better cope with a noisy, demanding and often mad, mad, mad, mad world.
Even taking periodic breaks during a hectic and stressful day for a minute of five or ten minutes of silence and/or solitude and/or prayer, or scripture reading, and breathing real breaths of life, is doable, no matter how demanding and stressful and intense our life is.
And this is how to you take such breaks for periodic, spiritual withdrawal during even an overwhelming day when the world is just too much with you:
Just do it.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
He utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come behold the works of the Lord . . .
Be still, and know that I am God!!!!
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