Dear Friends of Longview Chapel,
At the end of the Chair Yoga class that Paula Diehl teaches, usually the first and third Mondays of the month at 4:00 p.m., we have some time for silent meditation. It is a time to relax and allow ourselves to be more fully present in the moment and to visit in our mind’s eye a safe and sacred place for us. I look forward to this time, especially when we are doing circles, which stretch my shoulders sometimes more than they are happy to stretch.
As I was sitting there and really entering into the quietness, a gnat decided it would land on me. I’d wave it away, tried to swat it, but every time I would settle that rascally gnat would return. That gnat made me realize again how important it is that I/we find a time and a way to settle in God and to stop distractions.
For me that can sometimes happen as I sit by myself in a pew in the Chapel, stepping away from phones and computers. At other times I walk with God in nature. At home, I have a prayer space in our guest bedroom. It consists of my grandfather’s rocking chair, a candle, a small waterfall if I choose to turn it on, a Bible, some other books, and a small blanket a friend gave me specifically for healing when I had surgery. Bill knows when I am in that room with the door closed that I am entering into the silence, and he blesses me as I do him when he is on our porch or in his recliner.
Where or what is your space? How do you keep the “gnats” of life from interrupting the conversations you have with God? How do we find the stillness in God that the psalmist wrote about in Psalm 46:10?
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” NIV
Building Community With You,
Pastor Donna