Love WellSample

Be Still

A couple of years ago I found a park that had a handful of isolated cabins in the woods. I rented one and spent four days there. With the exception of eating and sleeping, for the first two days all I did was sit on the porch and look out at the view or sit inside the cabin and stare at the walls.

I did not restrain my mind but rather allowed it to empty itself. I thought about our church, my marriage, chocolate-chip cookies, Jack Bauer—whatever was on my mind I let the thoughts run until they ran out of steam. Finally, without having to fight off my brain I felt I was ready to engage my heart.

With some helpful direction from Richard Rohr, I meditated on a Hebrew psalm. I slowly read the verse and then sat quietly listening. I read it again, each time making it shorter. It looked like this:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I AM.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

For the first time in a long time I remembered that I was connected to God and His creation. By slowing and opening myself to God, I was feeling what it meant to be alive. In this quiet space I was not defined by what I could produce. I mattered because I was known by I AM.

A life of programming combined with the expectations of my marriage had instilled in me a drive to produce, perform, achieve, and fix. There is little space to feel when you are always “on.”

In a cabin in the Tennessee woods, in a little town in Israel, and in many places since, I have experienced what it means to Sabbath. I now long for moments of space and solitude. I have become an apprentice in the art of “unrehearsed living.”