Silence

Oh sweet silence.

I've always said that I'm no good at silence. Meditation? What's that. Clear my mind? Make room for the Holy Spirit to speak?

No thank you.

I need something to keep me company. If I need to concentrate on something, I'll put classical on. But even that can distract me and get me pretty worked up. Especially if one of the Planets comes on.

Silence and I are not good friends.

However.

I forget what I was reading—probably Authentic Beauty—but I felt challenged to turn my music off when I'm in my car. So I decided to start small. I drove to work that morning in silence. It was uncomfortable a couple times, like when I had nothing to distract me from the nasty thoughts I had toward some of my co-commuters. But for the most part, it was pretty great. I had to prepare some thoughts for our youth ministry guide training, and I was able to organize my thoughts pretty well during that 20 minutes of solitude. My thought process moved beyond the superficial ideas we want to address in our girls' mentor groups. I started working on a few of the deeper rooted issues we need to address.

I wasn't very good about heeding the call to silence the rest of the week, but then I tried again this morning. The results were similar to last week. I was surrounded by crazy drivers (grr). But the mean, frustrated thought moved towards processing.

During our first mentor group teaching time, we will be discussing, designing, then signing covenants. I want them to go beyond "I'll come every week & won't tell anyone's secret outside this group." So I was thinking, Jesus said we're to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and body. Can we make a covenant based on these four ideas? I believe so.

Oh, and I'm definitely teaching about blood & guts & God's covenant with Abraham. Just because we're girls doesn't mean we can't appreciate a gory story or two...

If I hadn't given myself the time of silence in my car this morning, I would have had to find that time elsewhere in my schedule. Which means that I wouldn't have come up with (or heard from above?) those ideas until the day or two before I have to teach. Now I have three weeks to ponder what it is the Lord wants the girls to hear about covenants.

Perhaps silence and I can become better friends. But first I'll have to quit ignoring her.

P.S. I borrowed a video from the library called Christoga. Christian + yoga = Christoga. I'm skeptical. But I'll give it a whirl. I'll let you know if it's any good.

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