53 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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How did it go?  Did you spend some time opening the door to silence?  Or, if you are already spending time with silence each day, did you notice other places and times silence opens to you?

Many people who decide to “give silence a try” are almost immediately frustrated when they encounter what seems to be constant noise, thoughts and images on the inside.  It might be easy to turn off a TV or radio or mp3 but quieting the internal noise proves to be much harder.  Frustration builds when we attempt to stop this internal noise and the noise either gets louder or the number of thoughts seem to increase each time we try to stop one thought.

Many counsel that we not try to stop any of the internal noises but let them go.  Rather than attending to the noises and giving them our attention, we do not give our attention to that noise.  We don’t try to push anything away, we don’t try to not hear the noises, we just let them float by and do not go after them.

It often helps to have something to bring us back to our intention to be silent.  This might be a word or even an object that has no power in itself other than it signifies to you, your intention to be silent.  By gently repeating the word or gently toughing the object, you call yourself to silence without struggle or effort.

See, if as you spend time with silence, you can let the thoughts, images and noises go, and rest in the deeper silence.

52 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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How did you “silence inventory” go?  What did you find out about silence in your days?  Does it appear anyplace?  Do you seek it?  Do you avoid it?

If you haven’t taken some time to consider if silence is part of your day, I encourage you to stop now and think about that.

If it is not enough in your days and you want to make it part of your days, where do you begin?  What are the even small things you can do to bring silence into your life?

Do you go for a walk anytime in your day?  What do you do while you are walking?  To you listen to a radio or mp3 player while you walk?  Turn it off.  Instead of listening to “something” hear the sounds the around you.  The cars going by, the wind, the birds and animals, your own breath, your heartbeat.

Do you commute to work in your car?  Try not tuning on the radio or cd player.  Hear what is there already.

Do you exercise at home or in the gym?  Is the TV or radio or music on?  Again,  turn that off and hear what is there.

When you want to take a few minutes to sit down and rest what is the first thing you do?  Turn on the TV, get a newspaper, a magazine, a book?  Why not sit down and not put something in your hands?

By intentionally not “filling” these times, you can begin to open the time to silence.  By becoming aware of the sounds already there, you begin to “give up” putting something more in the space and accept the space, the time as it is.

How many times today can you open the door to silence?

51 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Think about your day, your week, and look though the days for where you have silence.  Do you?  Are there periods of silence in your day(s)?  If you find silence in your day(s), does it come by accident, by happenstance, or is it intentional on your part?

Perhaps you do not find silence in your days.  Is that the way you prefer?  Do you shun silence?  Do you fill your days with activity and noise to keep silence away?  Perhaps you want to know silence better but do not know how to find it.

We have already seen a number of writers claim silence is important in our journey and in our “formation.”  Do you agree with them today or find their claims hard to understand?

Why not spend some time this week thinking about silence in your life.  Start with a “silence inventory” and make note of periods of silence in your week.

50 – Silence – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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“In a noise-polluted world, it is even difficult to hear ourselves think let alone try to be still and know God. Yet it seems essential for our spiritual life to seek some silence, no matter how busy we may be. Silence is not to be shunned as empty space, but to be befriended as fertile ground for intimacy with God.”

Susan Muto from Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us, by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, p 107.

Is silence a friend you seek company with or an uncomfortable and perhaps threatening emptiness you seek to avoid by noisiness and busyness?

49 – Spiritual Disciplines – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Last week a quote from Evelyn Underhill came to my inbox and I thought it worth sharing as we think about spiritual disciplines,

“Christianity is a religion which concerns us as we are here and now, creatures of body and soul. We do not ‘follow the footsteps of his most holy life’ by the exercise of a trained religious imagination, but by treading the firm, rough earth, up hill and down dale.” (School of Charity, p 52)

Just as we are not Christian only on Sunday or whenever we might happen to be in a church building or at a church related meeting, but are so as we tread “the firm rough earth, up hill and down dale.” Spiritual disciplines/practices are not something we do only on Sunday or in a church building or at a church meeting.  They are what God draws us to do so that our entire life may be more rooted in love for God, for others and for ourselves and as that love forms us, our every thought and action find its origin and power in God’s love.

48 – Service – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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In The Spirit of the Disciplines. Dallas Willard writes,

“In service we engage our goods and strengths in the active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world….  Not every act that may be done as a discipline need be done as a discipline.  I will often be able to serve another simply as an act of love and righteousness without regard to how it may enhance my abilities to follow Christ….  But I may also serve another to train myself away from arrogance, possessiveness, envy, resentment, or covetousness.  In that case, my service is undertaken as a discipline for the spiritual life….  Service to others in the spirit of Jesus allows us the freedom of a humility that carries no burdens of appearance.  It lets us be what we are – simply a particularly lively piece of clay who, as servant of God, happens to be here now with the ability to do this good and needful thing for that other bit of clay there.”  (pp 182 – 184)

When might you need to engage in the discipline of service?

47 – Service – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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So, is service a spiritual discipline?  Is it formational?  For a moment consider these words from the letter to the Philippians,

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (2:5-11)

To have the same mind as Christ Jesus, the same character, then is related to being a slave, a servant?  Scripture would suggest so.  In speaking of service Richard Foster writes, “… through [service] we experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves.” (A Year with God: Living Out the Spiritual Disciplines).

How do you practice “going beyond” yourself?

46 – Service – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Adele Ahlberg Calhoun may help us to see how service can take us beyond superficial activity,

“… many of us look right through others and never see them let alone care about what they need.  When we are preoccupied with our own concerns, much of the world is simply invisible to us.  Service is rooted in “seeing” – in seeing others as God does….  The Spirit of Jesus is a compassionate, serving Spirit that always works for the good of others.  Jesus maintains that radical love for others demonstrates whether we know God or not.”  (Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us, p 146)

What do you think?  Does service done in the Spirit of Jesus, transform us into Christlikeness?

45 – Service – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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We want to continue today our thinking about service as a spiritual discipline.

A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to look at the website of the Rescue Mission in Roanoke, Virginia ( http://rescuemission.net ), and was amazed at the number of “services” they offer. For example, housing for men woman and children in need, recovery programs for those dealing with addiction, a recovery arts program which uses art as a means to help, The Mending Wings Learning Center which offers courses and tutoring, meals are served, there is a free clinic, Angels with Scissors (where hairstylists provide service), a legal services ministry, a thrift store, a Super shopper program (you purchase a Kroger gift card, can add more funds to the card and 3.5% of anything you buy with the card goes to the rescue mission), they sponsor a running event each Thanksgiving to raise funds, and then there are the volunteers and board members who give their time to help the mission and the people using the services of the mission.

Their mission statement is “helping hurting people in Jesus’ name.”  I saw on the web page, “The Rescue Mission is the the church in overalls.”

Would any of us question that we are all called to love our neighbor and help hurting people?  Is not such “service” at the core of our Christian life.  But have you ever thought of service as a spiritual discipline?  How or when is service a spiritual discipline for us?  Is all service a spiritual discipline?

Was St Francis de Sales saying something mistaken, meaningless or profound when he said, “It is our works, whether good or bad, that form us …”

44 – Service – Intention on the Spiritual Journey

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Adele Ahlberg Calhoun covers a lot when she writes about service in Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us, p 144,

“Service is a way of offering resources, time, treasure, influence and expertise for the care, protection, justice, and nurture of others.  Acts of service give hands to the second greatest commandment: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”