Rest, for Heaven's Sake!

the world keeps on turning I'm learning to see right where I am is where I have to be you can't count the pages, all ages hear the call no matter how hard we try, life gets away from us all --Clint Black Perhaps one of the hardest things for people to do today is to be still and quiet. The book I am currently reading is one of those books that leaves you wondering how the author climbed inside your brain and read all of your thoughts. That, or else there are other people like me on this old earth! In Invitation To Solitude and Silence, Ruth Haley Barton has written a book that is so needed in today's world. Maybe the need is magnified by the frenzy of the holiday shopping season. Or maybe it's just life as I have arranged it. Even while I am blogging I have my headphones on and turned up loud (Clint Black singing Desperado, if you're interested!) I believe my "still and quiet" prayer life has suffered because... *I have been overcommitted, unwilling to say "no", and an expert in ignoring the consequences of such. *I may be addicted to excitement. That sounds odd ... but that's the way Barton expresses our unending quest to fit one more thing into the schedule, have one more laugh, check e-mail one more time before bed, doing just one more task before heading home ... there's no end. No one can pray with stillness and quietness of heart if there is always in the back of our minds that one more thing I can do if I hurry. *I am afraid to be caught resting. Friday I sat outside of Starbucks in Mobile with a friend for a few hours talking about whatever floated across my mind. He's a very good friend, by the way, to put up with such an assortment of nothingness! One of our members happened to drive by and waved at us. I can't tell you how much I wanted that to look like a work meeting. Sunday at church she said, "I caught you!" Gulp! She meant nothing by it...just a friendly jibe ... but she doesn't know that I do not want to be caught resting. After all, while I was resting there was something else I could have been doing. I think it was Lindsay who had a post on her blog noting that she didn't care anymore if her friends thought she was lazy or whatever ... she could only do so much and that was it. She put it in a better way...but the idea is the same. Maybe I should HOPE to be caught resting ... and in that way perhaps I could set a new example. I took a nap this afternoon. It was a really great one. Now, though, I want to get to the office and do something. Am I trying to make up for the down time? Well, maybe it's just part of Americana. Hard work. Excellence. Five Minute Manager meets Five Minute Bible Student, who is also the Five Minute Husband and Father. God help us if our whole life is divided up into five minute segments. "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10 On my personal retreat a few weeks ago I spent much time talking. Talking out loud to myself (an old habit, not one I'm ashamed of!) may have been just another way of clouding the issues of life. I dont' feel badly about it, though ... for some of us ten minutes of silence might be akin to Chinese water torture. Silence ... still and quiet prayer ... is something we must grow into. Our culture has taught us that these times of meditation and stillness are a waste of time, an opportunity to get just a little bit more done. We are driven ... but where are we going? "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work." Genesis 2:2 I think I should follow suit.