November, 2008
I sat with my feet up, sipping hot coffee and looking out my bedroom windows over our balcony and beyond to our yard which had been transformed into a winter wonderland. It’s been twenty years since I lived where it snows (excluding one freak snowstorm in Bakersfield in 1999 and one in 1994 in Inner Mongolia). All I remember are the chills. I had forgotten how the cold outside makes being inside feel warmer. And even though outside feels cold to us, snow provides a blanket of insulation to the cold earth, a time of dormancy in which the earth rests and simply soaks in the bit of refreshing moisture for its upcoming growth spurt.
I feel like my last eight or nine years spiritually have been a winter of sorts, one where – though busy externally – my soul has been almost dormant. Only recently have I even gotten hints that there is a spring coming, when the snow will begin to melt, bringing cool refreshment, the rays of sunshine penetrating beneath the surface layers. Things are stirring within.
I am finding that, of my classes, the one that uses my brain the most is the one that I like to dwell on. I can sit at my computer for hours, typing out thoughts and answers. But I am here to learn, not just the intellect-side of seminary, but also the experiential-side. And my classes that make me spend time in that arena are tough. Yet it is here that I find the stirrings deep, deep in my soul.
A frequent assignment in these experientially-oriented classes is to spend time listening for God’s voice. Not an audible one – but for His promptings internally. I don’t know why it is so hard for me to shut up and listen. (Those who know me can probably attest to the fact that this has always been an area of difficulty for me.)
While sitting in my “contemplation chair”, I find I can clean more fingernails, fix more hangnails, and clean more bellybutton lint than I ever dreamed possible. From that chair I remember every cobweb I’ve noticed, think through every bill that needs paying, and can solve all of the problems in, not just our household, but the entire world. However I am in a program of study where world problems and bellybutton lint are not at the top of the list. Here, we are learning a new way (for me) of approaching Scripture. I am learning how to do Gospel meditations – where one contemplates a Gospel story and pictures themselves in the story with Jesus, learning and trying to feel what one would have felt had they actually been there. Recently, I was mentally on a boat in a storm-tossed sea, getting pitched every which way, my head being jerked all directions like a bad roller coaster ride. I thought about the economy, all of the beloved ministries that we support which are all struggling with a lack of funds; I thought of the political mess our country is in – where people vote to give chickens bigger cages, but are gung-ho about booting a baby out of its secure womb before it is ready. And as I allowed myself to be caught up in the swirl of the sea, I heard Jesus saying, “Peace, be still.”
I am also trying to learn Lectio Devina, a method of Scripture meditation where one has a period of stopping and listening for what God has to say to me through that passage. It is different than just journaling what I learned, though there are some similarities. My problem lies in that I can write about what I’m learning, but to turn off my thinking and to listen is very, very difficult.
One of the aspects that attracted us to this seminary is their training and mentoring program. For your first semester (if one is full-time), each person goes through an introduction to the process. Then every semester thereafter, you have to fill out a long form working out a learning contract for both character traits and ministry skills. In the contract you write out the goal and the path to it. You choose Scriptures to meditate on, books that you may want to read to help you in a particular area or activities that you want to do to help you grow. Then you are required to go out and find two external mentors with whom you will be meeting weekly for the remainder of your studies. And you’re assigned a faculty mentor as well as a spiritual formation group of peer mentors that you meet with weekly as well. All of these meetings are to hold you accountable to the desired growth that you outlined on your learning contracts. It is a rigorous process, but it takes learning from haphazard to intentional.
One of the first areas that I want to work on in my learning contract I’ve already written about in these missives – I simply want to fall in love with Jesus more deeply. I want to understand His view of me as His Beloved. And one of the keys to this, I believe, is to spend time listening to him.
When I am talking all of the time, Mike gets to know me. But for me to get to know him, and for me to understand his love for me, I have to listen to him. This last year has been a walk in listening to the heart of my husband. Instead of assuming that I know what he thinks and desires, I have tried to really listen, to hear his heart, to see him as God made him, to understand him for who he is. For me to learn to love Jesus, I need to set up an environment where I have time to listen, to nurture a silence within myself. (Can one put duct tape over the mouth of one’s soul???) In publications, this is called “having white space”. It is the white space around the words on a page that allows the eyes to rest, to see the picture as a whole, to make meaning out of the words themselves. Somehow, I need to put white space in my life.
I suppose I’ll begin by putting literal white space on my calendar – whether it be intentionally unscheduled time or times of scheduled nothingness. Time where I can sit. Sit and be still. Then I will need to put white space in my life in my spirit – when I am sitting and being still, I need to learn to quiet my thoughts and listen. I am reading books that will turn my heart toward Jesus – books like Joe Stowell’s I Would Follow Jesus, and Leighton Ford’s The Attentive Life. And after writing last month’s newsletter on reading in the Song of Solomon, while doing research for a paper, I came across a study on the same by Hudson Taylor, one of my favorite missionaries, so that’ll be another source to help me dwell on being His beloved.
I’m hoping that this season of study in seminary will be one where I can enjoy the insulation of the winter’s snow, seeing it as a time to rest, to “be still and know”. And as the sun warms my heart I transition from winter into spring, as life and love and passion begin to flow again in my veins, that I will not forget the lessons of this season, that I will take those lessons with me in my heart.
Like a rock,
The Submissive Despot
Amy Louise
Amy Shane
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment