Unnecessary Noise!

Do you ever feel like the world is too noisy. I’ve been feeling this way lately. 

Everything feels loud: Just as I type this sentence a house alarm sets off, phone demanding attention, news comes through the radio and my Facebook feed filling with politics. I’m tired of trying to keep up. 

I want the opposite of the noise. I want quiet!

What a view - laying on grass looking at sky on retreat

This week has been full of moments to just ‘catch myself’. During the week I went with Sister to Templeston for a ‘come away day’, which is a retreat day. As always it came at the right moment, a moment to soak in the sun and absorb the Lords presence. 

It sounded like peace to me. If the opposite of noise is quiet, then being silent in the presence of the Lord was exactly what I needed. 

This week I have started to get a routine in place, it has started with a self routine or sorts. I read an article the other day about “self companionship” 

It rises the question of been on our own team, or willing to allow the vicious voices to coax us back in the ring with ourselves. 

Last year the south school principle read Dr Seuss book “Oh the places You’ll Go” at the end of year mass. Some of the quotes are so true on many levels. Self companion I often think of that point where he writes 

I feel we are in the midst of an entire country-worth of big feelings right now, and we can easily punish ourselves for not doing more, knowing more, speaking out more. As always, I believe we do not punish ourselves into change. We do not demean ourselves into meaningful action. We do not bully ourselves where we are trying to go. Instead, we believe ourselves there. We companion ourselves there. We finally realise we deserve something more. 

The past couple of weeks I listen to the vicious voices in my head as if they were the only voice to listen to, as if they were the truest truth, as if they were the voice of God. And it got me nowhere. Those voices offer no way out. They offer a tangle. 

Im so blessed to have spent a little time reflecting and questioning my reasons for saying certain things to myself. As soon as I realised who had my ear, I had to do the difficult and holy reparative work of coming around the table and sitting next to myself as I would a dear friend. I had to ease up and back off and breathe. I had to forgive myself and begin again, which are two tasks that feel impossible when I am listening to an inner soul bully. 

I have realised that there is this beautiful release in self companioning. 

Pushing, punishing, scolding, cornering, comparing, bullying, ignoring, overriding, silencing, shaming, blaming… these behaviours do not led to anything productive. We cannot in our own power just simply banish them once and for all. We need to see self companionship as a practice one might argue, something we commit to. So when those times come that we later, as inevitable, we will recommit to being on our own team. We will not serve the mini self of shame and its empty promises. 

I should note here that self companionship is not self worship. Let me be clear. Self companionship si about being able to see our beauty and our brokenness alike and to hold and allow God to heal instead of needing to hide our own wonder or our own wounds. 

This is transformation!! 

As I continue this journey with a very new self companionship, I wonder if that is why Elijah was transformed. 

The Lord spoke to him many times, he had seen phenomenal things. At one point, after Elijah had experienced the pinnacle of his career, he decided he was finished. He was exhausted. The world was too much. He didn’t want to do it anymore (sounds familiar?)

But the Lord was not finished with Elijah just yet… 

“Go, stand in front of me on the mountain, and I will pass by you” Then a very strong wind blew until it caused the mountains to fall apart and large rocks to break in front of the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there as a fire, but the Lord was not in the fires. After the fire, there was a quiet, gentle sound. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. 

Then the voice said to him, “Elijah! Why are you here?”

(1Kings 18:11-13)

The Lord was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Instead, He was in the quiet. 

Returning back, I have been caught in the planning and making schedule for the coming half year. I have been caught on the idea of wanting more, wanting the Lord to show me something big. (ministry) And don’t get me wrong; The Lord can do huge remarkable things. But recently He’s been teaching me to meet Him in the quiet, to come before Him, silent and stripped down. No accolades, no accomplishments, no aspirations. Just me. 

When the world is noisy and feels like its emptying us, God meets us in the quiet and slowly fills us back up. 

In the quiet, when I meet with god, He tells me who I am, not who I should be. 

I am loved, and I am beloved. I am cherished and whole, and delighted in. This is who He says I am - not through wind, or fire, or an earthquake, but in the still, small whisper, calling me loved. 

Hamilton Gardens, NZ, - beautiful hydrangea just beginning to share its full glory.