June 6, 2007
Have decided after yesterday's road rage temper tantrum in the car ( which fortunately no one but my steering wheel saw/heard) that I really need to start practicing some spiritual discipline, aside from my usual practice of getting up, drinking coffee and reading for awhile before work. These past few weeks I feel really out of touch with God, unsure how to meaningfully pray, and in need of... something.
The first discipline I decided to try is silence. I've read many references to silence; Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, Richard Foster, Tony Jones, to name a few authors who espouse it. My practical brain wants step by step instructions, but I'm finding to my frustration that I have to figure it out for myself.
So, this morning I read the chapter on silence in Tony Jones' "The Sacred Way", and then started with 10 minutes of silence, sitting cross legged on my bed, with my ubiquitous cup of coffee, door closed and cell phone off, and tried to just listen.
I heard birds, trains, buses, clanking pipes from the plumbing supply place across the avenue, Jose the maintenance guy talking on his cell phone in Spanish (the office is below my window), and various other voices in the distance.
Tried to clear my mind and kept thinking about what I was going to write in my journal, and whether someday I will be able tp publish all my great, inspired writings. Talk about getting ahead of one's self.
Alternately, my mind kept wandering to the lyrics of the U2 song "Yahweh", which I suppose is a start.
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