Posts Tagged: "Stillness"

attitude of listening post

An Attitude Of Listening

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

Continuing in this theme of stillness / quiet / silence / listening / hearing… a few more words from Sue Monk Kidd’s book God’s Joyful Surprise:

The aim of silence is to create an attitude of listening to God.

Without listening, silence is just a vacuum. Inside our silence, we seek an encounter, a dialog, a participation with His presence. But learning to hear His whisper is the most delicate miracle of all. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears…”

If. That little word says a great deal to us, doesn’t it? It says God speaks, He knocks, He awakens… but… perhaps we will not hear Him.

Not long ago I stepped outside into the deep velvety darkness of an… Read More

Silence. Quietness. Stillness. Post

Silence. Quietness. Stillness. Is There Anything We Neglect More?

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

There’s a gas station near my house that I frequent. When I stopped in the other day, something was different. We were headed out together as a family for an adventure. As I stepped out of the car to fill it up, there was instant noise and flickering of lights… the gas station had upgraded their pumps—the new ones featured little television screens and speakers.

This is not my favorite.

I realized as I stood there waiting for the tank to fill that I had come to enjoy these 2-3 minutes of quietness. And now that space has been filled up with news reports, entertainment, and advertisement.

Sue Monk Kidd, in her book God’s Joyful Surprise, writes…

Silence. Quietness. Stillness. Is there anything twenty-first century America neglects as much? There is no reprieve even in the elevator where music is piped in to cover the silence. We drive to the store or home from work through a maze of billboards screaming more words at us.

All day the roar of technology around us is constant: traffic, planes, phones, dishwashers, television, videos, electronic toys that talk, blip and bleep incessantly. We are buried under a… Read More