Sitting In Silence

Sitting in silence lets things come to you.  Back in the days before retirement sitting in silence was not my strong point.  And lest I offer a deceiving word, it is still a discipline that requires intentional purposing and continued practice.  In those moments when it comes, it is like a piece of quietness that settle and surrounds the soul and all the senses given to us to experience the world and its glory.  I am not one who has arrived, but one is learning the value of sitting in silence and finding blessings coming into my life when it does happen.

A moment last winter comes to mind as I think of how things come to us when we sit in silence.  The cold gray days of biting wind change the landscape here on the farm.  The knee deep green grass waiting for the baler to turn it into large rolls of hay is nowhere to be seen in winter's landscape.  Instead, the ground is brown as if burned and little resembling life is left.  In those moments the pecan trees are like skeletons suspended in the gray skies.  Harvest is past and with it every sign of life.  Some say winter is synonymous with death and dying.  But, I remember one day as I was sitting in silence a new thought came to me.  What I was seeing was not about death, but resting.  Everything was resting, waiting, pausing before renewal and continued life.

 

In the moment of sitting in silence what came to me was a reminder of the need for resting in my own life.  It is not necessary to always be in a hurry to get things done.  It is ok that life is not being lived as it was before retirement came to visit my spirit.  In fact, it is not only ok, it is better.  What came to me was the realization that there is built into the creation a season for resting.  If I am to live in step with the creation which is ever and always around me, seasons of rest will wash over me that I might be made ready for the journey toward the life inherent within God's purpose for my conception, my birth, my life, my death, and my resurrection.