WATCHING AND LISTENING - by Calvin
Tiny grains pass silently from the upper chamber of my hourglass into the void below. Two candles flicker gently in the evening darkness of my prayer room. I have great peace being alone with Jesus in the house of my heart. He prepares me to receive the revelation of the holy place where he wants to dwell with me in the depths of my soul.
I am increasingly aware that I live too much in the mind and not enough in the heart. The Bible tells us that it is in the heart where we believe Jesus. The heart is also the place where he dwells in us. I am beginning to meet him there more and more.
My quest for the lost room in the house of my heart that I mentioned before has begun. My progress is uncertain to me. Jesus knows where I am and I trust him completely. I just finished reading a helpful book by Frederick Buechner called, "Telling Secrets." He unlocked some heart doors but more than that, he offered some sound advice that complements the wisdom of Teresa of Avila referenced in my previous post.
Buechner hit me where I live, right in the head. He exhorts, "Stop speaking and thinking and reading about it so much and start watching and listing." I must watch and listen from my heart in order to travel with Jesus to the lost room, that sacred place, in my soul. I must allow him to search the interior castle of my heart in silence so that I can watch and listen for his revelation of that holy place.
Perhaps I simply long to remember forgotten memories of my childhood. Looking at some of my early photographs, Lisa has remarked that I look sad. Why would such a little boy look so sad? I believe that Jesus can help me to remember and he is able to restore all things.
"If we choose to seek the silence of the holy place," Buechner writes, "or open ourselves to its seeking, I think there is no surer way than by keeping silent." Contemplation in the presence of God opens the soul to his revelation. I will keep silent while he guides me to the place where he wants me to join him in the house of my heart.
At His Mercy,
Calvin
I am increasingly aware that I live too much in the mind and not enough in the heart. The Bible tells us that it is in the heart where we believe Jesus. The heart is also the place where he dwells in us. I am beginning to meet him there more and more.
My quest for the lost room in the house of my heart that I mentioned before has begun. My progress is uncertain to me. Jesus knows where I am and I trust him completely. I just finished reading a helpful book by Frederick Buechner called, "Telling Secrets." He unlocked some heart doors but more than that, he offered some sound advice that complements the wisdom of Teresa of Avila referenced in my previous post.
Buechner hit me where I live, right in the head. He exhorts, "Stop speaking and thinking and reading about it so much and start watching and listing." I must watch and listen from my heart in order to travel with Jesus to the lost room, that sacred place, in my soul. I must allow him to search the interior castle of my heart in silence so that I can watch and listen for his revelation of that holy place.
Perhaps I simply long to remember forgotten memories of my childhood. Looking at some of my early photographs, Lisa has remarked that I look sad. Why would such a little boy look so sad? I believe that Jesus can help me to remember and he is able to restore all things.
"If we choose to seek the silence of the holy place," Buechner writes, "or open ourselves to its seeking, I think there is no surer way than by keeping silent." Contemplation in the presence of God opens the soul to his revelation. I will keep silent while he guides me to the place where he wants me to join him in the house of my heart.
At His Mercy,
Calvin
Yes, as the title of the documentary movie invites us "Into the Great Silence," your witness invites us to follow Jesus into a holy silence of mystery and revelation. Entering silence is the intentional disconnecting from a world that often demands our connection---TV, pager, cell phone, email---and from a false self grown addicted to those external stimuli. At first we feel "lost" without that connection; but soon we are "found" and "embraced"---free to unlock the hidden rooms of our hearts so that what has been lost in us is found by Jesus. And the angels rejoice...again.
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