In the shower this morning (for me, one of those places I remember all those strange things long since assumed forgotten) I suddenly remembered something our school chaplain at my Church of England secondary school had told us about in a 6th-form Act of Worship: a way of being still. The basic idea is to enable you to just be still with God, to clear your mind of all the busyness, that you might be able to hear/feel/know God more. You pick a phrase; it can be from a Bible verse, or a worship song, or something and then you repeat it, losing one word each time and then gaining it back. The example I now remember he gave was "Be still and know that I am God." The example I "remembered" in my shower earlier was 'be still for the presence of the Lord', but both work! So I stood there, the hot water pouring over me, letting it pound (albeit lightly) against the muscles I'd just been pressuring in our rowing outing, and I turned my mind away from all the things going through it that I wanted to get done today, and I said, "Be still, for the presence of the Lord". And I stood in the silence. I waited, and after a little while my mind wandered, so I refocused, moved those things away again and said, "Be still, for the presence of the". I kept this going, each time my mind got distracted, less and less often, using the phrase to refocus; "Be still, for the presence of"; "Be still, for the presence"; "Be still, for the"; "Be still, for"; "Be still"; "Be"; And then back out the same way... And a few lines in, I felt... peaceful. I felt calm, and whole, and not overly busy, not tired, not even just like I needed to rush to the next thing because there was so much I actually really wanted to do - I just felt like I was with God, or like he was with me. And like that was the most important thing I could've been doing. It felt fulfilling, and just spending that short time set me right for the rest of the day; I went into the day not thinking just about all the tasks I needed to get done, but also about the people around me whilst I was doing them. So that going to the church coffee morning and talking to people before settling down on the back table with my book and laptop; and taking a slightly longer break at lunch time with my friend, were more important than using every possible moment to do my work. I mean, I still have a long way to go, but it's a start. This also means that I'm writing this now, and not at midnight again after finishing all the work - much more preferable! :-)
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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