.shhhhh.

Silence.

it's a scary concept, being alone and being quiet. today's culture tells us that we need to be on the go, need to be productive, need to interact with people.

but i think we've all forgotten the value of silence. how often do we read of jesus going off by himself to pray, and yet we dismiss this silence, this meditation, this solitude as unnecessary, impossible, or mystical.

whatever our excuse, it just doesn't happen anymore. but it has so much more value than i think most of us today realize.

some quotes from things that i've been reading recently (for class nonetheless):

"You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it."
-Danny Saunders, in Chaim Potok's The Chosen

"Silence is the room we create for the searching of God, where we hear his voice and follow." -Mark Buchanan, Your God Is Too Safe

"Only when we have learned to be truly silent are you enabled to speak the word that is needed when it is needed."
-Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

all three of these books have so much more to offer and i would encourage you all to read them, you know, in your free time ;)

but honestly. when was the last time you were totally, completely.....silent.

so........shhhhhhhhhhhhh......

.bigger.

"God is so much bigger than a 36 foot dragon."

A friend said this to me, in the midst of feeling ridiculously overwhelmed by the daunting task in front of her of creating...well....a 36 foot dragon.

That hit home.

"God is so much bigger."

Than everything. Anything. Whatever our own personal dragon may be. God is bigger.

"God is."

Plain and simple.

la pluie

http://www.deezer.com/track/142108

i listened to this song several times this evening, inspired by the paper i was writing about rain. and i decided that i really like it a whole lot more than i ever thought i did. it's kind of slow and mellow and i preferred a lot of the other songs on the album (which is fantastic if you're into french) but...i really do like this one a lot.

On voudrait savoir éviter
La pluie
Entre les gouttes se glisser
Deux, trois nuages et l'on
Court à l'abri
On n'aime pas trop se mouiller

On se dit qu'ailleurs
Sous d'autres latitudes
Le soleil est brûlant
Même en plein hiver
On rêve d'Orient,
De cap au sud
De sable et de mer

Et l'on attend sous des portes
Cochères
Ou transi sous un parapluie
On met des chapeaux, des gants,
Des impers
On se cache, on se rétrécit

Faudrait pas s'éloigner,
Rester dans son coin
Une averse et l'on risque
D'être surpris
Pas de jolie vie,
De joli chemin
Si l'on craint la pluie

On prie le ciel
Et les grenouilles
Et l'hirondelle
Que le temps tourne
Comme tourne la chance
Dieu que tout baigne
Quand il y a du soleil
Mais voilà,
Le mauvais temps ça
Recommence

Mais
Dans les vies sèches
L'eau se venge aussi:
Y a des ouragans,
Des moussons,
Des déserts.
Autant apprendre
A marcher
Sous la pluie
Le visage
Offert

i don't wanna translate the whole thing....but it talks about how we spend our lives trying to avoid rain, running in between raindrops and we think of all the other places in the world where the sun shines even in the winter. but the last verse says this (roughly):

But even in dry lives
Water has its revenge
There are hurricanes
Monsoons
Deserts
Might as well learn
To walk
Through the rain
Our faces
Lifted (the french for that word is "offered", which, though it doesn't really make sense, gets the point across better..i think)