The Sylvr Pen

It’s 11:30 PM as I sit at the kitchen table, typing this, wondering if I can maneuver my thoughts into a blog post and publish it before Day 16 has crossed the line into “tomorrow,” and still make sense, let alone convey the wisdom I’ve been gaining. The clock ticking behind me on the wall echoes in the country dark and stillness, sharpening my awareness of swiftly passing time.

I have been hopping between “worlds” lately, packing, unpacking, and repacking suitcases, spending hours of time on the highway, and today even a couple hours in the (still mushy) garden on the homestead, and sleep deprivation and a clumsy bandaged finger have been making this present task a little like trying to type in boxing gloves.

But I have, in all this seeming confusion, nonetheless connected with new wisdom. And so, if nothing else, I want to give you a review now of where we’ve been and a preview of where we’re going next.

After considering where we might find wisdom (of various kinds, on different levels), we began with the unlikely initial topic of “Despair.” Though we saw despair first labeled as “a crime,” in the next post we saw it as the potential beginning of a whole new, and more beautiful phase of life. This view of it came from Shannon Thomas in her book about overcoming emotional abuse.

From there we moved to hope that can be born out of despair as we look to God for what we can’t summon out of our limited, fallible selves and cluttered interiors.

We then moved on into Thomas’s second phase of growth/recovery/healing which she labels “Education,” as we also considered helpful auxillary topics of clearing clutter, getting needed exercise and sleep, and stilling the mouth, mind, and soul.

Now I find us returning to her steps/stages, because the next one is “Awakening,” and this is exactly what I just realized I wrote about for yesterday, relating Ruth Barton’s experience of awakening that came in her own time of silent retreat and stilling of inner noise and clutter.

So let me quote here from Shannon Thomas, explaining where we are and where we appear to be going in this unplanned blog series, and we’ll pick up more on personal awakening in the next post or two (or three?)…

“When [people] have identified their despair…(Stage One), and then Educated themselves on the specific[s] [related to their area of despair], an Awakening happens… (Stage Three). This is the point in recovery when the aha moments happen. Survivors can describe what they experienced [perhaps clearly for the first time], have learned new terminology, and in doing so, no longer feel isolated in their [difficut situation]. [They] may start to feel empowered… However, there are good days and bad days. It is common… to swing back to Despair and then forward to Awakening again. This is normal…

“This is also the stage where anger may really arrive onto the scene… a level of feistiness survivors have not previously experienced.. They say things like,

‘I can believe evil is real in the world. I have seen it.’

‘What I have lived through actually has a name, and other people know what I have experienced.’

‘Turns out, I am not bat-crazy after all.’…

“See the theme? It’s all good… At times, it’s an angry awakening… definitely bittersweet… 

She is dealing specifically with healing from psychological abuse–with, by the way, very insightful understanding, and helpful information. But these stages can apply to many other areas of life and trial and growth.  

Bottom line in any case: the whole point of this education isn’t to pass an exam or make a speech or sound brilliant, but to come to an understanding, of truth and self and what specifics are going on in one’s own life and soul. From there real progress can begin to happen. 

*****

One more piece of found wisdom on the value of getting still and solitary: This, from Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Solitude and Silence. (If you’re new to this practice, this book would be a helpful guide to help you get started.)

A friend , who was also a psychologist and a person who could give good spiritual help and guidance said to her,

“Ruth, you are like a jar of river water all shaken up. What you need is to sit still long enough that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear.” 

Her response was resistance, a sense of that being impossible. 

“But even though my mind had a hard time grasping what this settling would actually be like, the image of the jar of river water captured what I knew to be true about myself. I could not avoid the realization that I was the jar of river water all shaken up and the sediment that swirled inside the jar was the busyness, the emotions, the thoughts, the inner wrestlings I had not been able to control. It was a moment of self-discovery–which is where all good spiritiual journeying begins.

“The jar of river water… also captured my longing to… be still long enough so… the waters of my soul could become clear, and I could see whatever it was that needed to be seen… I recognized an invitation to be still and know  beyond my addiction to noise, words, people and performance-oriented activity… It captured my desire for something… beyond the head knowledge that no longer [alone] sustained my soul.”

Then she says an interesting thing, especially in light of what we saw in this past post about the necessary importance of “despair” (because despair and desperation are of the same word family, are they not?): She testifies that she’d reached a point of desperation, and

“what I learned is that you stay with the feelings of desperation and let desperation do its good work. 

“As strange as it might sound, desperation is a really good thing in spiritual life. Desperation causes us to be open to radical solutions, willing to take all manner of risk in order to find what we are looking for. Desperate ones seek with an all-consuming intensity…”

“Perhaps you sense the same thing in yourself–something like desperation or desire that is creating a willingness to move beyond the familiar into uncharted territory. Pay attention to these stirrings of the soul. Rather than running from them, distracting yourself from them, or suppressing them, let the dynamics of desperation and desire do the good work of inviting you deeper into solitude and silence where the presence of God makes itself known beyond words.”

Be still and know…”

How often have you had the same scripture  or scriptural sentiment pop up in front of you from various sources within a short frame of time, and totally unexpected? And even the first time it appeared, did it resonate? Did you recognize even then that it was something you needed to hear?

At almost every women’s retreat I’ve attended in the last decade, it seems at least one woman has reported that happening to her during her away time. This happened during the past weekend, after “silence” was “broken” when we came together and shared as a group. One woman shared a verse that showed up four times for her during the few short days, and it addressed something important personally for her.

We (the group) had the same sort of thing happen with the daily flip calendar that the director likes to set out on the snack table, propped open to the day’s date, so that anyone looking over the table will notice and hopefully read the day’s message on it. 

Yesterday as I passed by, I stopped to read… and saw this:

At first I suspected the director had purposely bought a calendar with a stillness theme throughout. But no, I flipped the cover shut and saw… this:

And I did page through the little volume, and didn’t happen on any other thoughts about silence or stillness. Only for Saturday, October 13th, the day that we had set aside totally for silence.

After that I noticed, in the small retreat center where we’d gathered, these, as well:

and

That really isn’t so surprising at a Christian retreat center, but they did stand out for me after I’d read the calendar’s devotion for the day–and considered that this was our first time to use this venue, and as far as I know there are no other silent retreats held there.

So I share the devotion with you, above, because it certainly is appropriate “found wisdom.” And it seems like it wants especially to be read.

Peace!

*****

I have to admit, I almost posted this, just this, on Thursday, because it expresses the option I wanted to take, right then—so much! So tired, thinking I’d really bit off more than I could chew this time…

But as yesterday’s post explained, I have been so fortunate as to be able to attend a silent retreat over this weekend. (So this post is pre-written and scheduled for publication today.) And the first thing I have probably already done at that retreat is… sleep!

That might seem like a waste of time and travel, but “listen” to what Ruth Haley Barton says in her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence:

“Whether like Elijah you have been driven into solitude by desperation or… you have entered more willingly, you may be surprised by what happens once you get to a place of silence. You may fall asleep while trying to pray. You may find yourself longing to curl up under a blanket and rest, and you try hard to resist your body’s need… {But…]

“Like Elijah, I was too tired and worn out to find God–or anything else for that matter… During solitude I fought feelings of exhaustion by attempting to do something that felt ‘productive’ like reading my Bible, journaling or meditating on some very profound thought.

“Eventually Elijah’s story invited me to stop fighting my exhaustion and surrender to it in God’s presence…

“Fatigue and depletion may be the first thing you need to attend to as well… Perhaps the most spiritual thing we could do is get more rest so we are alert when we want to be alert. But we can also use our times of solitude as opportunities to rest in God.”

I hope that both you and I can get the rest we need this weekend, and rest in God today. That, after all, is what Sabbath is for.

Happy Sabbath!

More borrowed wisdom about the value of silence tomorrow.

*****

As you read this, I am (hopefully) away on a silent retreat.

That means I am not “talking”—in person or in a blog post. So I have scheduled instead to let these two quotes do the talking for me, because they mesh so well with yesterday’s post: