Posts Tagged: "Quiet"

Advent Day 11: Finding God In The Quiet

There is a time for everything. A time to be silent, and a time to break the silence. —Ecclesiastes 3.1, 7

I suspect we are addicted to filling all the spaces with noise. And when I say “we,” I mean us Charismatic Christians – including Pentecostals (who are the worst about this).

Please don’t think I’m attempting to throw someone else under the bus. If anything, I’m throwing myself under the bus. I am both a Charismatic and a Pentecostal (although I prefer the Charismatic label, and would like to add a couple descriptors like “gangsta” and “who loves Catholics”).

I am constantly working to fill all the spaces with noise – background music, words, videos, more words, and more music.

In a recent conversation about a Sunday service at our church, a friend said:

“This could be taken the wrong way, but my favorite part of the baby dedication was when you guys were all done saying stuff and just stood there for a while holding and looking at her.”

Funny how his favorite part was the one without any noise.

Maybe we need less cacophony and more opportunities to, as Depeche Mode put it, “Enjoy The Silence.”

I do think we need some holy… Read More

Lent Day 30… The Space Between The Notes

Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. —A.W. Tozer

Sting (yup, Sting—as in the lead singer of the Police) once said…

Silence is disturbing.

It is disturbing because it is the wavelength of the soul.

If we leave no space in our music—and I’m as guilty as anyone else in this regard—then we rob the sound we make of a defining context. It is often music born from anxiety to create more anxiety. It’s as if we’re afraid of leaving space.

Great music is as much about the space between the notes as it is about the notes themselves.

Tina Francis spoke of this at… Read More

Here In This Mundane Place Among These Mattering Things

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*picture above: Rattlesnake Lake, North Bend WA

“When weekly rhythms of rest are at their best for me, I find myself plopped on a blanket with a packed lunch. If it is fall or early winter, I wear a cap, gloves, and clothes warm enough to withstand three hours outside. In a bag, I have my Bible, some paper, and a stack of poetry or a novel. Nestled between the shade of trees of one of my favorite… Read More