I cannot hear the bells from my room, which seems odd. Probably because I have two fans going. Next time I’ll get a room on the other side of the hall.
No sleep last night, but vivid dreams (yes, I realize that’s contradictory). I meant to write them down as I remembered them, but could not find the strength to get out of bed (read: lazy). The one I do remember was quite abstract – there were multi-colored soap bubbles, fragile worlds floating. Each one represented a person’s life; entire lifetimes filled each filmy sphere. Every now and then the bubbles would collide, trying to assimilate all that was within them into a new, larger sphere. Sometimes it worked and was beautiful. Sometimes the added weight caused the bubble to sink. And sometimes the bubbles simply bounced off one another and floated away. There seemed no rhyme or reason – you had to collide and take your chances.
No doubt where my mind is.
Couple of thoughts – as I waited for the stars last night, I used the fading light to read the introduction to Merton’s Dialogues with Silence. For those not familiar, Gethsemani is where Merton lived, so I thought it appropriate to bring with me. One of the quotes struck a chord that has continued in prayers this morning:
The true contemplative, is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is “answered,” it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence, it is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.
Then this morning at Lauds, we sang Psalm 38 and one of the verses why do we wait when God is all that we need?
“And now, Lord, what is there to wait for?
In you rests all my hope.”
We also read from Song of Songs, but that’s a discussion for another time….
I did come here with an agenda – what I wanted God to show me, to make clear. But I see now I need only to allow His silence to speak what He wants me to hear – now what I want me to hear. I still will lay those at His feet this week, but will open up to hear what else he might say to me.
Looks like the sun is finally scattering the morning fog. Time to go listen to some words of wisdom from one of the monks. Æ
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