Lazy, Lonely Saturday

It sounds a little boring, but it's just what I needed: A lazy, lonely day to read and think.

The girls and grandson are off helping with a move. My husband is at work and my parents are off to a concert in the northern part of the state. It's just me and the kitties today. I have reading and writing to do, but somehow, they just needed to sit by the wayside and wait for me to catch up.

Sometimes all the things that crowd my time and compete for my attention, even if they are good things, crowd out my thoughts. Then, I become ineffective and stressed out.  One of my friends tells me this is because I am an introvert. I don't know - I like people. I love to visit with my friends and to talk for hours and hours, but somewhere deep down, I long for quiet solitude.

It's not really loneliness (I can be more lonely in a crowd). It's more like a retreat. I think that's one of the reasons that Adoration is such an effective prayer form for me. It allows me time to just Be. I have to be quiet and I have to listen.

I have been studying the pre-Socratic philosophers for the past four weeks and read in a secondary source that the Pythagoreans believed that silence was divine. Of course, the only primary fragments we possess from this school are those of Philolaus, who really says nothing about silence being divine, but I think they probably did believe that. If moderation and the study of the smallest clues that Nature gives us to seduce us into discovering her secrets is what you're after, then observing them in silence makes sense.

It's the same with Prayer.

When I shut up and hold still (which isn't often!) I can actually hear the world around me. I pay attention to and address the small things that help me head off big problems that might follow later. I give myself time to think and plan a course of action instead of rushing head-long into something I'll regret later. Through prayer, I find the small things about myself that need amending and being quiet gives me the mental clarity to see what needs to change and how best to change it.

So, while I didn't get much of my reading done for the week, I spent a good bit of time unpacking the past week. Now, I have a direction and a plan for the coming week and with my batteries recharged, I'm ready to take it on.