If I have learned one thing from my weekend at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, it is how to make room in my mind and in my life to be more open to hear God's call.
The amazing solitude of the Abbey Church in the dark of 3:30 AM is truly a blessing that allows one unprecedented focus. I spent a lot of time in the church this past weekend, both in silent contemplation, in prayer before the chanting of the Divine Office, and during the Office itself. The key, as I see it, is to minimize distractions in one's life. And to that end, I have decided that certain distractions MUST be minimized or eliminated. Living as a solitary soul in this busy busy world is hard enough without all the extra stuff we fill the small spaces in our lives. Being temporarily away from family obligations, work requirements, pressures of my volunteering roles, TV, News, the Olympics, the Internet, and the demands of the weekend household routine is the only way I have found to see the truths that I have discerned for myself.
We are in one sense, like a 1-quart glass jar. We believe that we can fill our jar with the Rock of God and the important large stones of Family, Eating, Sleeping, Learning, Work, and Service. Then we add the gravel of hobbies, necessary recreation, and rest, leaving little room for error in our busy schedules. As if we were still unfulfilled, we fill the smaller empty spaces with the fine sand of an online life, trivial games, distractors, busy work, and extinguishing the fires wrought by our self-imposed prison of busy-ness.
I find myself needing to focus, yearning for the peace of the Abbey Church in the dark hours of morning, wanting to hear the cacaphony of geese as they are roused by the Angelus bells at 4:00 AM, and not really sure if I was ready to come back to the real world.
To prioritize, I should outline those activities which are necessary and productive and pleasing in God's eyes. As for the rest, well, we shall see what there is room for when I am done. (Although most of the online life I think will be sacrificed ;-)
+ Peace, Friends +
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3 comments:
Online life can be spiritually uplifting depending on what you do when you are online. Setting some boundaries before hand helps to keep things in focus.
pax
I am so looking forward to my retreat coming up Labor Day weekend. We arrive Friday afternoon and leave at 1PM on Sunday. Time stands still there.
I went out to visit the store a couple weeks ago. It is such a peaceful place -- even if the geese are bit possessed at times. LOL
I find that too Abbey are amazing God spaces I go to one all the time as I blessed with being 15 -20 minutes away from one and with out them I would have lost faith all together Ive been to week day mass each day this week and the monks are just so encouraging to me that it feel like ive got 20 brother of the family.
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