Silence is necessary.

I am an introvert and I need times of quiet, but living in a small flat with my husband and a three year old daughter, I don’t really get them.  It has taken me 37 years to figure out that I don’t function well without times of quiet.  I don’t think anyone does, really.

We are not encouraged to have times of quiet.  I sometimes wonder if we are actively discouraged by our society and the powers that be.  Time of quiet is time to think and evaluate our lives.  Maybe when that happens we see things as they really are and we start to realise that we are being lied to… Sorry, wrong meeting!

I live in the city, I spend ridiculous amounts of time on the computer and I watch a daft amount of foolish shite on the TV.  Even when the electronics are switched off in my home, I live right beside a trainline and near a main road.  There is always noise.  ALWAYS.

We have lost the ability to sit and be still and NOT communicate.

I took up meditation and times of quiet last year.  I took a couple of days out and went to The Bield at Blackruthven, which is an amazing retreat centre near Perth.  I think I spent my first two hours there sobbing with the relief at being away from the trappings of my life and in a place where I felt at peace.  I waited.  And felt that God met me in that place.  Not because of the location (which is beautiful, by the way), but because I shut the fuck up and watched and listened instead of just moaning at Him about the circumstances of my life.

I try to discipline myself to switch off the babbling, idiot electrons and make time for silence.  I find that when I do that, I change and sometimes my circumstances change too (whether or not you believe that God intervenes in our lives directly).

This Sunday at Re:Hope, Darren Rusco spoke on the subject of waiting on the Lord.  It was timely.  I had lost sight of my need to shut up.  I’m going to start again.

My mum was with me.  She didn’t tell me off for drawing in church.