On this season’s lessons
As life has it, God appears in the most unexpected places. The whisper, the stillness. Most of you are rolling your eyes as I type this ocean side in arguably the most extraordinary place in earth. Weeks ago I bought a one way ticket, packed a suitcase and board the plane to Hawaii. The ultimate leap of faith, I thought..
This season’s lesson - finding stillness. I’ve spent days, months, years avoiding the softness of my heart, it’s illumination, the wholeness and goodness that dwells deep within. Why? Because I was convinced once that stillness isn’t enough. I’ve been convinced that God is in the doing, the achieving, the next degree. Spirit works through all things - but I was being spoken to in the silence. He was speaking to me in the waiting. The whispers seemed to drown out the noise the longer I sit. Why did I fight arriving to this place?
Haleakala Crater Sunset
Maybe it’s a product of the human mind. This week I found myself sitting at a table in a coffee shop on Maui. A story of Elijah in 1 King’s being read from a new friend. Elijah: a faithful servant in the waiting, listening for the next instruction. 1 Kings 19:11 “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.” 12 “ And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not found in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.”
God wasn’t speaking through the wind, the earthquake or the fire - he was in the stillness. Elijah was attuned to hear the voice, this whisper. We have the ability to fall into the same state of rest, but this in itself is a leap of faith. To go against the convincing, the doings we’ve thought so strongly would bring us closer to truth, to fulfillment.
Today it is my prayer for you and I to remember this stillness, the softness of our heart, to illuminate our daily doings and make the moments - every single one - sacred. To have faith in the moments of non- doing. To lift up in honor the process of attuning myself to hear this whisper.