Be Still, Take Time
Wayne Muller
When we breathe, we do not stop inhaling because we have taken in all the oxygen we will ever need,
but because we have all the oxygen we need for this breath. Then we exhale, release carbon dioxide,
and make room for more oxygen. Sabbath, like the breath, allows us to imagine we have
done enough work for this day. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again.
Let the work of this day be sufficient....The world seduces us with an artificial urgency that requires us
to respond without listening to what is most deeply true. In Sabbath time, we cultivate a sense of eternity
where we truly rest, and feel how all things can wait, and turn them gently in the hand until we feel their shape,
and know the truth of them. The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready.
We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know.
In the process, we inadvertently create suffering, heaping imprecision upon inaccuracy,
until we are buried under a mountain of misperception. But Sabbath says, Be still. Stop.
There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished.
Take time to rest, and eat, and drink, and be refreshed.
And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment,
listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks
the quiet truth of what is needed.
Source: Sabbath
FIGHTING FLEAS
Etty Hillesum
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow,
for they sap our energies…. The things that have to be done must be done,
and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested
with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God.
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves,
more and more peace, and reflect it towards others.
And the more peace there is in us,
the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.
"There is a reason they call God a presence -
because God is right here, right now.
In the present is the only place to find Him,
For One Who is Exhausted
John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out,
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the rush of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have travelled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit,
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
©John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p.125, 126.
“Most of us need special places and special groups where the clutter of our cultural and personal egos can lighten and we can see the divine again. In finding such support we discover an amazing array of companions. The least formally educated and theologically sophisticated person may well become our best inspirer. The most sophisticated may rely less on their knowledge and be open for simple trust. Persons of all kinds can be discovered as true soul-kin. Spiritual hunger and trusting willingness – to be opened beyond what we know or understand – can be the deepest human meeting ground, the place for the most hope for our fractured human family.”
