The Sound of Silence

Last night, Kirk and I had the great pleasure of attending a monthly gathering here in Winter Park, called the Wellspring, led by Jan Richardson and her husband Gary, both of whom we met at a contemplative retreat they led here in town recently.

And wouldn’t you know it, but the theme of this month’s Wellspring gathering was rest. Such apt timing for what we’ve been considering here in this space this week.

After each of the Scripture readings in the service, we entered into a short time of silent reflection. And during one of those silences, I just allowed myself to take in its sound.

What was the sound of silence like? 

I could hear the occasional creak of a pew. I could hear the air conditioner’s whir. I could hear the scratch of pen against paper as Kirk jotted down a quick note next to me. I could hear my own thoughts bouncing from one place to the next, from reflection on the passage to the worries I had about my day. 

Eventually, my ears tuned to that A/C whir and joined with the image of the sky scene you see in the photo above, which I’d captured just before entering the chapel that night. And it was like my ears and mind and whole being poised, attentive to the sky’s silence for a moment, taking in the sound of clouds, the space of God’s habitation of the heavens.

The sound of clouds. Just being with God. 

What is the sound of silence right where you are? When you close your eyes and listen, what do you hear? 

When Do You Take a Breath?

Hi there, friends.

Yesterday, I invited you to consider where you find places of rest and whether you’ve found an interior posture of rest that you carry with you everywhere. 

Today I want to talk about taking much-needed breaths.

Do you have time for taking breaths?

Let’s think about this in a physical way.

Our physical breath is closely connected to the life source of our bodies — the heart, as well as the blood that pumps throughout our bodies because of the work of the heart. If we hold our breath, not allowing any breath to come in or out, our blood not only starves of oxygen, but our hearts eventually pump into overdrive and could ultimately stop beating altogether. 

We need breath. It keeps our hearts and bodies alive. It keeps ourselves sustained.

I’ve been thinking about our metaphorical need for breath for a little over a year now. It started when I began work on my master’s thesis proposal and decided to study our increasing connectivity online and how it affects our spiritual lives. I read many books about the way the internet is affecting our brains, our bodies, and our spirits. 

And I realized at the end of it all: 

We need space to breathe.

We need, in the midst of all the craziness and noise, to connect to the ground of our being. We need to breath practices to keep us alive.

This last year has been a journey of experiments, then. Of putting into motion the different ways I saw that I could personally offer spaces for breathing that keep us connected to the heartbeat of our lives and selves.

As know you, one of the primary offerings became this space at Still Forming, which became transformed into a week-daily oasis from the noise. And along the way, other places for rest and reflection — for breathing — were added too. 

This past weekend, I did a little spring cleaning and sprucing up of the oasis of Still Forming to reflect all the “breath spaces” offered here for you.

You can sign up for the once-a-week Cup of Sunday Quiet that arrives in your inbox on Sundays as an invitation to quiet and reflection and connection at least once a week. You can read about how the Look at Jesus course that launched last year is in redevelopment to become a year-long, self-paced journey into getting to know Jesus more, traveled in companionship with me. 

Lastly, I updated my bio and then gave this lovely space a brand-new tagline (see updated site banner!): 

A space for reflection. An oasis from the noise.

Now, that’s better. 

I hope that no matter where you are or how you choose to find it, you find places to rest and breathe on a regular basis. Know that I’m here to champion the much-needed oxygen such “breath times” bring into our lives and to provide time and space for that here the best way I know how.

xoxo,

Christianne 

Just Being Held

Today is one of those days when it feels like I’m holding concerns from many different sources in my heart, and the end result is that my heart is now dragging on the ground. It can feel a bit disorienting, like I don’t really know what happened because I thought I was fine just yesterday, but then when I stop and enumerate what I’m holding, I realize it makes a lot of sense that I’m feeling weighted down. 

I’ve had several moments of sitting with Jesus on the beach this morning through this. 

We sit on the beach head and stare out at the waves, and I try to talk to him about the heaviness of my heart. But words are insufficient, and the talking stops almost as soon as it’s started. Usually, I just end up staring back out at the waves, enumerating to myself again all those concerns and reaffirming, “Yeah. It’s there. The heaviness. For a reason.” 

Each time this morning, this cycle of talking, then stopping, then thinking leads to my just leaning into Jesus, my head against his shoulder, so that he can hold me. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, just sitting with me and my heaviness. 

And I realize: this is what I want most of all in this place. 

I don’t want someone who will talk with me about solutions. Not right now, at least. I don’t want someone to talk with me at all, actually.

I just want presence.

And being held by Jesus as we sit on the sand and watch and listen to the waves right now? it’s just right. It’s just what I need. 

I love that we can be with Jesus — or, rather, that he can be with us — in whatever state we are. If we need to talk, he’ll talk. If we need to move, he’ll move with us. If we just need presence, he’ll sit with us. 

What do you need in your relationship with Jesus right now?

Love Makes Us Still

I’ve written before that my girl kitty, Diva, teaches me so much about God and our connection to him. Early on, I shared that she teaches me about contemplative prayer. I’ve written how my love for Diva teaches me about God’s love for us, particularly as humans. And more recently, I shared that she teaches me about nature versus nurture. 

This morning she taught me something new — namely, that love makes us still. 

I’ve noticed a pattern with Diva.

For several days at a time, she decides she’s just not that into me. I try to engage her as she’s resting on the couch, and she doesn’t return the interest. I call to her from the bedroom in the evenings, which usually sends her scurrying to my side, but instead she stays planted in the other room. She’s just not that interested. 

It gets rather lonely for a few days, and I miss her.

But then, pretty much like clockwork after a few days, suddenly she’s everywhere I am. She is clingy in an over-the-top-even-for-Diva kind of way. She just can’t get enough of my attention or affection. And since she seems to need it rather a lot, I gladly give it to her. (Between you and me, I’m so glad for her return. I miss her companionship when she’s in those several-days-away hiatuses!)

And then things return to normal. She jumps on our bed at 5 a.m. wanting attention, then settles down and lets us fall back to sleep once she’s received it. She jumps off the couch to follow me a few hours later, once I get up and moving about, fully entrenched in our usual morning routine of sitting at my desk for coffee and prayers for a few hours each day. She alternates between prowling around at my feet and jumping up on my lap and desk during the first chunk of time I’m sitting there. 

And then she becomes very still. 

Just like in the photo above, she will sit on my desk for long lengths of time, completely content to just sit there. She stares at the same exact spot on the desk or out the window for extended moments. She moves her head slowly to look at me if I rub her head, not really inclined to move around.

She’s just content. Just being. Near me.

This morning I realized it’s because she’s fully resting in love. She’s received her usual fill of attention and affection, received during that first big chunk of time we’re together at my desk, and now she’s able to just rest in it. 

Can we do the same? 

Perhaps you can relate to Diva, going away from love for long stretches at a time, preferring to make it on your own for a while, only to scurry back to the source of love after you’ve been away, then drinking it in huge gulps because your thirst has gotten so parched. Or finding yourself in a normative rhythm with God, spending time prowling around at his feet or sitting on his lap and letting him love you each day. Or perhaps, maybe sometimes, you find yourself completely content in that love, settled into a place of stillness and peace as you allow yourself to just be you, fully inhabiting yourself and fully loved, in the presence of God.

Where in this picture are you today?

Where Are Your Moments of Stillness?

Do you have moments of stillness in your life? 

Last night at church, we talked about solitude and silence. My small group shared how unconventional it is to seek solitude and silence. Life can be so noisy! And there is always something more to do that keeps us from just being still and unproductive with even a few moments of our time.

Then, when we do get alone with ourselves and God for a moment, the noise of our mind often becomes quite loud. 

But as the teacher of our study shared, the swirly and shaken-up sense that we have upon first being still will settle, like silt in a jar full of river water. The sediment settles, and the water becomes clear.

What would a moment of stillness that leads to eventual clarity be like for you? 

With You in the Storms

It seems everywhere I’ve looked in the last 24 hours, there have been reminders of storms.

But in each storm, God has been present to still and overcome them with his mere presence or a word.

For example, last night I recorded a lectio divina exercise for a small group of friends, and the passage selected for the exercise was taken from Matthew 14. This is the passage where Jesus walks on the water and then invites Peter to walk on the water, too.

Did you know that in that story, Jesus came walking on the water in the midst of a great storm? The passage says that it was an evening when the disciples were being “battered by the waves.” Also, when Peter walked out on the water to Jesus, it was a glance at “the waves churning beneath his feet” that made him lose his nerve and start to sink. 

Jesus reached out a hand to keep Peter from sinking further into the tumultuous ocean. And once he and Peter climbed back in the boat, the ocean became as still as glass. 

Here’s another example. Later in the evening, Kirk and I listened to the daily Pray as You Go podcast, which we like to do together as a devotional way to end the day. The sacred music selection for this weekend’s recording held the following words: 

Calm me, Lord, as you calm the storm

Still me, Lord, keep me from harm

Let all the tumult within me cease

Enfold me, Lord, in your peace 

And the Gospel reading for the podcast was yet another storm-related story — that of Jesus being asleep on a boat while a great storm came and assailed it on all sides. Here is another place where Jesus, once woken by the disciples in their fear, spoke a single word to the storm and made it calm. 

And then this morning, the psalms offered yet another encouragement concerning the presence of storms: 

Sea storms are up, God

Sea storms wild and roaring,

Sea storms with thunderous breakers.

Stronger than wild sea storms,

Mightier than sea-storm breakers,

Mighty God rules from High Heaven.

— Psalm 93:3-4

Our God is mightier than the storms. Though the storms may rage around us, turning us toward fear, the presence of God and a mere word from his lips is enough to slay them and bring back calm.

What storms do you face in life today? In what ways are you assailed and battered by waves? How does the near presence of Jesus or a mere word from his lips bring the size of the waves down to mere calm?  

How Do You Connect to God Right Where You Are?

In the last several months, I’ve noticed a theme crop up in numerous conversations with friends, acquaintances, and strangers. That theme has, at its root, a question:

What does it look like for me to connect to God in my specific life station or personality type? 

This has a lot of bearing on the work done here at Still Forming, and I’ve begun to take this question seriously.

For instance, the foundation of this site is a week-daily invitation to a moment of stillness in your day. But what if moments of stillness rarely exist in your world? What do you do if quiet reflections of the heart are a luxury you can barely fathom?

Or, what if you’re an extrovert? What if you’d rather be outdoors than sitting quietly at your desk, reading the scriptures? What if you need to see and hear and touch God to know he’s real, rather than use your intuition?

In other words: 

Is there room for me and God to connect, no matter where I am in life or how I’m made? 

My response to that question is yes. And I’ll share more of my thoughts on this here with you as I continue to explore and consider the question. (Some of my thoughts on the question have been previously written here, here, here, and here.)

But for now, I’d like to open up an opportunity for you to share your input. 

Where is God where you live right now? How are you finding God in the midst of your current life station?

How do you connect to God through the way you’re made? How does he make himself uniquely personal to you and the person that you are?

He Completely Understands You

There’s this meditation prayer that Kirk’s spiritual director uses whenever they meet for a session, and Kirk often opens our prayer times together at home with it. It goes like this: 

Be still and know that I am God.

(pause)

Be still and know that I am.

(pause)

Be still and know.

(pause)

Be still.

(pause)

Be.

Last night, before we prayed together over the week, Kirk began our time together with this prayer. And as I took in that very first line, Be still and know that I am God, I couldn’t help but settle into the relief of who God is. 

God completely understands everything about us.

There’s no need for debriefing or creating context because he has always been there. He has seen every moment and knows every thought and feeling. He knows the reasons certain things worry us or distract us or confuse us. He knows the certain things that excite us or put us over the moon. 

There’s such relief in that, isn’t there? 

What is it like for you to experience relationship with a God who completely understands and already knows? 

What Prayer of the Heart Looks Like

Hi, friends.

I want to begin by acknowledging the quiet in this space recently. I’ve been committed to writing in this space five days a week for you, and I still expect to maintain that rhythm here for the foreseeable future. But over these last couple weeks, life has caught up with me, and I’ve had to occasionally acknowledge the limits of my humanity once again. 

One thing is true: I’ve missed being present in this space each morning of the week with you.

This morning, though, I had the chance to sit quietly at my desk for the first time in several days. As I sat there, I could hear my mind buzzing like a lawn mower and whirling things around inside like a big and powerful leaf blower. But I sat quietly with all that internal mind-noise, glasses off and eyes closed, and let my mind descend into my heart. 

This is what prayer of the heart looks like for me. 

My mind, with all its buzzing and snapping, floated down into my heart and slowly settled. There, I saw my heart fold open, a bit like a water lily resting on a lily pad, opening to the honest truth of myself and opening to the presence of God with me. 

There is such a difference between the experience of the whirring and snapping of my mind and the experience of this prayer of the heart. I noticed that difference this morning.

When my mind is buzzing and plowing around, it’s like I’m talking to myself, trying to remember everything I need to do or dimly aware of the feelings surrounding me. I talk to myself about those feelings in my mind, telling myself: I feel sad. I’m overwhelmed. I’m scared. 

But in prayer of the heart, I talk to someone — God, specifically. 

When I open my heart like a water lily, laying my heart bare before God, and tell him what I think and feel, it’s an experience of relationship.

I feel sad. I’m overwhelmed. I’m scared.

It’s quite different to tell someone, with such vulnerability, what you are feeling, isn’t it?

What is it like for you to express the truth of yourself to another person? How is that different than expressing it just to yourself?

Negating the Superhuman: Drinking in the Present Moment

Over the last several days, the superhuman tendency has shown up for me again. And as I’ve watched it lurking around, controlling what I do and how I do it, I’ve noticed some more things about it.

I’ve noticed that the superhuman tendency makes me impervious to real feelings and experiences. I’m never fully present to what’s happening around me when I’m in this mode. Instead, my mind is always whirring on the next Big Thing. People and experiences become transactional. Sometimes they feel like distractions from what I need to get done.

When in superhuman mode, I’m also quite resistant to slowing down. I get out of touch with God. I’m unable to sit still. 

The last several days, that has manifested itself in a dearth of quiet stillness before God, which is unusual for me. I’ve noticed a bit of going-through-the-motions while doing things I normally enjoy, or an avoidance of those things altogether.

Finding my true, still center has taken a lot of effort the last few days. I haven’t always been successful at finding it, either.

But a few moments ago, I listened to a contemplative podcast that combined sacred music and reflective questions to invite me deeper into stillness and presence in the right-now moment. The speaker observed that the world around us is full of people, sights, sounds, and experiences.

Could I let myself see and hear and experience them? 

For some reason, upon that invitation, an image of a wine cork presented itself in my mind. I could see its texture and even imagine what its little grooves would feel like in my hand. I could almost hear the popping noise that the cork would make when it uncorked from the bottle. I could hear the glug-glug-glug of the wine as it was poured into a glass. I could imagine the taste, too — the wine was a delicious red cabernet (my favorite). 

When I’m caught up in superhuman mode, I don’t notice those sounds or relish those tastes. Everything becomes a blur and seems to get in the way of what I must do next. Every encounter, every task, and even every conversation becomes a bit more functional than I’d like.

I don’t want to live that way.

I want to drink up the moments right in front of me. I want to live life and experience people. I want to experience my food when I’m eating it. I want to live deeply into each conversation and encounter. I want to enjoy the tiny enjoyments of life, like the way the rain creates a sheen on my brick-lined street and makes the weeds pushing up through the cracks a really sharp and vibrant green. 

These moments of full enjoyment make us vulnerable. They bring down the guard that normally braces us to succeed and not let anything fall.

Today, I choose that vulnerability. I chose to trust in the grace and goodness of God instead of my superhuman-ness.

What about you? Can you take a moment to really drink in the present moment? What does a measure of that full enjoyment of this moment feel like for you?

Take Time to Breathe

If your life is anything like mine — or most of society, really! — then you know what it’s like to get caught up in the hustle and bustle. Projects, commitments, reminders, to-do lists … all of it can fly through your mind and your day at warp speed, and it’s all you can do to keep up with it sometimes. 

Today I want to invite you to breathe in the midst of all that.

Take a moment and close your eyes. Notice the thoughts and concerns running through your mind. Just pay attention and notice what’s there. Are you worried about the day? A project? What might happen in this or that relationship? 

Now, take a moment to breathe. Take a deep breath in, hold it for a moment, and then slowly exhale. 

Do it again. Breathe in … then slowly breathe out. 

Next, pay attention to the things you hear as you slowly breathe in and out with your eyes closed. A bird singing in a tree down the street … water running in the other room … someone shaving … someone mowing their lawn … a car driving by with a very loud muffler … leaves rustling on the roof … someone working on their front porch construction … a printer pushing pieces through its feeder.

What do you hear? Pay attention. Notice the source of life in each of those things. What human or animal creature is connected to that noise? Take a moment to consider that source of life. Offer your gratitude and good intention toward that person or creature in this moment you share with them, just noticing they are there. 

And then, very gently, open your eyes. 

Cultivating a Quiet Heart

A few weeks ago I stumbled on a line of a psalm that I keep returning to ponder every couple of days. It says: 

I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.

— Psalm 131:2, The Message

I find myself reading these words over and over again. These words articulate one of my greatest desires and greatest questions. 

As desire, they speak of my longing for stillness, particularly before my God and as I go about my daily life. I want to carry around inside of me a heart that’s prone to peace and calm. I want to be a person who can sit before God in stillness and peace. I desire to be content inside myself.

But the words articulate a question, too. They cause me to ask, Is this true of me? 

The word “cultivated” implies ongoing intent.

I think of a gardener or farmer who must cultivate his soil for optimum growing conditions. This may mean breaking up hard, clay ground. It may mean turning and turning and turning that ground so that is gets soft and loose and crumbly and so that his hoe or spade can go even deeper into the ground below, pulling the rich, dark treasures of hidden, moist soil into the mix with the crumbly remains above. It may mean watering that ground on a regular basis. It may mean giving certain portions of that land a rest from activity in any given planting season. 

Have I cultivated a quiet heart? Am I continuing to do so? These are questions we’ll always need to ask ourselves because failing to cultivate means leaving our hearts to become barren, wild wastelands, empty and devoid of life or the promise of life.

How do we cultivate a quiet heart? 

I’m curious to learn your experience of a quiet heart. I’ve found that a quiet heart comes about, for me, when a few conditions are present:  

• When I’m given room to speak the truth inside me
• When I feel fully accepted and loved
• When I’m not worried about the future

In my mind, this comes down to being parented well by God. The psalm, in that same verse, speaks of resting like a weaned child on its mother’s breast. This child has no need to fear simply being where she is. She’s not worried about her next meal. She’s nothing other than her complete self in that moment. She knows her mother will respond to her cries and needs and desires. There is complete trust and satisfaction.

What is your experience or non-experience of a quiet heart? What are the conditions that allow you to cultivate a quiet heart? What are the challenges you face in this? 

Taking Time to Be Still

Today as I’m traveling home from several days spent with family in California, I’m reflecting on the value of silence.

One reason I love air travel is that it provides extended pockets of quiet — time to be alone with my thoughts, a good book, my journal, some of my favorite tunes. My soul becomes very still and calm and at peace when I travel, usually.

So in these extended pockets of time gathered around me today, I invite you into at least one moment of it.

Can you take a moment to be still today? When you do, where do your thoughts turn? What desires emerge? What sort of prayer emerges from your heart?

You Need Not Do Anything

This past weekend, I attended a retreat to complete three years of training in the ministry of spiritual direction. For this week’s entries on Still Forming, I’ll be posting reflections gleaned from the retreat that made me think of you and this space throughout the weekend.

Today I’d like to reflect on the grace of being invited to simply be where you are. We were invited several times throughout the weekend into this kind of grace-filled space, and I couldn’t help but think of how important this kind of invitation really is.

For instance, half of the weekend retreat (Friday night through Saturday evening) was intended for silence. We met for periodic sessions as a group, during which time there was ready laughter and observations and sharing, but the rest of the time was offered as an invitation to experience silence.

We ate our meals together in silence, and we were given several blocks of time between sessions to simply explore the grounds, sit quietly in the gardens, pray and journal, or take a nap.

How often in our lives are we given such ample space to simply be still? 

But the retreat leader was keen to say that this invitation to silence was not meant to impose rigidity on us at all. “The world is noisy — have you noticed?” he asked. “Silence is not meant to be external to us. Ultimately, we are meant to discover what it means to be in silence in the midst of noise.”

The goal wasn’t silence for silence’s sake, in other words. If we needed to talk or connect during the time allocated to silence, then so be it. We had complete permission to use this weekend time set aside in the best way we saw fit.

I so appreciated that grace.

Then later in the weekend, we were offered these words from a poem by Franz Kafka:

You Need Not Do Anything

You need not do anything: you need not even leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You don’t even need to wait, just be still, quiet and solitary
and the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

— Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

It struck me as slightly odd to be receiving such a gracious invitation to freedom from a man whose name is synonymous with a cockroach in my mind (Kafka is most famous for having written a book called The Metamorphosis), but I was deeply encouraged by the words of this poem when receiving them. 

You need not do anything. 

You can just sit at your table and listen. 

In fact, you need not even listen, if that’s too much to do. You can simply wait. 

In fact, you need not even wait. Just be still. 

The whole world will open to you in this stillness of the quiet.

Isn’t that encouraging?

To me, this is so much about dethroning expectations. We often think we’re expected to do this or do that, and it creates so much noise inside our heads that keep us from that true, still center, doesn’t it? But if we are invited to simply be where we need to be, all kinds of freedom opens up inside. Then we can get in touch with the truth of ourselves, our connection to God and the world around us, and the creativity our lives invite us to experience. 

Are you familiar with this kind of grace? Is it easy or difficult for you to dethrone expectations and sink into the truth of your heart? Is there any specific measure of freedom you need to receive in this moment? What is it like for you to experience the invitation to just be exactly where you are and need to be?

Taking Time for Stillness

Yesterday I wrote about the corner in my home that is my sacred space and how it has sat lonely and unused for the last month. This morning was the second in a row that I sat in this corner again and allowed myself to slowly sink into stillness before God in my heart. 

I don’t know about you, but when I don’t take time for stillness, I get so lost.

It is as though I end up rambling aimlessly through a forest of dead trees, a wilderness without any path to be seen, just dead trees everywhere and their brittle branches strewn all over the ground. I slowly pick my way through the branches, attempting not to let the hard, sharp sticks jutting out from the broken branches dig their way into my skin. 

But when I allow myself to be still before God, somehow Jesus finds me. He finds me and places me back on the path. There, he holds my hand and looks into my eyes. He speaks to me, and he listens. We end up walking and talking together, holding hands. A calmness steals over me, and I do not fear losing my way. The path is so evident before us. He is with me. 

Can you relate to this experience? When you take time for stillness, does everything become clear, a path emerging before you as you take time to align yourself with your God?

And when you don’t, do you feel yourself picking carefully through a forest of dead trees and fallen branches and sharp and jutting sticks?

Today, I encourage you to take a moment of stillness in your day. If even for just a few short moments, step away from the demands of life and attempt to quiet your heart. Allow Jesus to find you in the dissembled wilderness of branches and sticks and bring you back to the clear path where he can walk and talk with you. 

What do you discover when you do this?