Into Great Silence

It's 10 o'clock on Thursday evening. I'm sitting at home alone watching a 3-hour documentary on Carthusian monks called Into Great Silence. Before you make assumptions about my piety, let me tell you that this seemed like the most boring way to spend an evening imaginable! But since my boyfriend is out of town for 3 weeks, and my best friend is working tonight, I thought I'd give it a try.

Sure enough, the first 30 minutes or so were torture. My mind was racing with all the other more productive things I could be doing, emails I could be checking, twitters I could be typing, Facebook posts I could be making... Because this documentary doesn't move at the pace of a normal film, I had plenty of time to be completely distracted. But as the minutes gradually turned to hours, the stresses of my day, and the distractions of my heart slowed their frenzied pace at the lullaby of the monotonous tones of the monks night prayers. I found myself reflecting; able to grasp my heart more fully than I have in a long while. It must be so relaxing to be a Carthusian monk.



I invite you to ask with the hard questions with me:

Why do I do what I do? Right now, I seem find myself fast-paced, stressed out, and going a million miles. Nothing is simple, everything is multi-tasked and extra-complicated. I'm glued to my Crackberry, I check CNN, Twitter, Facebook, Beenup2 and my email just before going to bed and just after getting up. I rush from meeting to meeting, and have a rather short fuse. Why? Do I feel obligated, am I being pressured? Is this pressure coming from other people or myself? Am I afraid of being a failure? Am I purposely avoiding my life by keeping "busy"?

What am I doing that the Lord hasn't asked me to? Neville Johnson says most people spend their entire life making apple pie for God to get to heaven and discover He doesn't like apple pie. In what areas am I making apple pie, and can I stop? Sometimes I get myself knee-deep in commitments that the Lord never asked me to make, but by the time I figure that out, I'm still required to maintain my integrity and my word. Lesson learned from experience was [insert voice of the Lord here]

"Don't make a vow that you don't intend to keep and I didn't ask you to make."

And truly, obedience is better than sacrifice.

What are the areas that the Lord has said are important? When I ask this question and wait on the Lord, what He says is never what I expect. I expect something like, "That really obvious, high-level ministry-related thing is what is really important to ME." but that's never it. It's more like "have a regular lunch date with your father, being deliberately vulnerable and honest with your boyfriend, being patient with your roommates, not lashing out when you are misunderstood or sideswiped at work, taking time to sing to Me, and not just in front of people as your "ministry," These are the kinds of things I hear when I listen. If I would do that more, I know my priorities and life would be in better alignment with the heart of Jesus. I'm still learning.

I have this tendency to completely over-commit out of sheer desire to be helpful. Then I get so bogged down that I go completely nuts, always frenzied and frantic, unable to give anyone the attention and love that they need, running around with much ado about nothing.

I just watched a monk glue a shoe. It took like 15 minutes to glue the sole onto this shoe. I saw him prepare the materials, peel back the sole, apply the glue, blow on it, and hammer the sole down, and there's no background music. But you know what I didn't see? Impatience.

Whatsoever you do, do it as unto the Lord.

more to come, sooner than later.