Joyous Nothing

Editors Note: I wrote this blog about seven months ago, and never posted it. Not because I am too busy, no, but rather because I am too forgetful. And now, for your reading pleasure, a look at what was going through my brain half a year ago.
Editor's Second Note: It's no longer the hot season! High five to that!
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I could blame it on the heat, the oppressive stifling heat which slows down every thought and action, or I could congratulate myself for personal growth. Either way this past year and a half I have learned the joy of doing “nothing”.

Evenings and weekends are slow moving events. We read, play games, do crosswords or sit. We host a weekly supper club. Sometimes we watch movies or TV shows on our computer. We spend a whole day baking bread in the solar oven. We relax in the shade with friends. Last year we were tracking our book consumption and it turns out I read about 55 books in 2010. 

At this pace days slide into weeks, into months, and somehow these days have slid into almost a year and a half. A few years ago GEEZ magazine had a campaign to “de-motorize your soul.” Turns out for me that de-motorizing my soul means stillness. 

It means noticing the fantastic night sky, stopping, and gape-jawed staring until my neck hurts. It means sitting outside with a book and waiting for the warm breezes to remind me about the wonder of sweat.  It means I now notice that after a day spent primarily on the computer I find myself anxious, needing a break. I have tasted the sweetness of stillness, and I don’t want to go back.

I’ve been ruminating on this blog for a while (sitting and thinking about it if you will) and while its been in the rising I have come across wisdom from others. In the same way as when you learn a new word and then for the next few weeks you hear this word everywhere; I have been again and again reading and hearing and seeing thoughts about stillness and nothingness. 

Joel has this as his computer desktop (found on this website): 

The other morning the Bishop opened our assembly meeting by reading this Psalm 131: 1b-2a:  

"I don’t concern myself with matters too great, or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself..."

 Madeline L’Engle’s words came into my inbox as a part of the God’s Politics RSS feed I subscribe to: 

“I sit on my favorite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busy-ness, time to be… it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it.”

Several years ago I wrote a poem; a friend and I sitting on a porch swing, white hair swirling, mingling with the steam from the tea cooling on the arm rest. The last line of that poem is “by then we will have learned how to sit”. 

While I don’t have white hair yet, I have learned to sit - at least when it is over 40 degrees.