Here's a Thought

I have been thinking quite a bit about prayer. Thinking about it, talking about it, teaching about it and practicing it. My prayer life has been so much in my head recently -- and I have not been volunteering much at the homeless shelter or food bank recently. I wonder if cleaning my utility room, painting, buying a washing machine, gardening and in general cleaning up my external life is as much as incarnational prayer as is working at the homeless shelter. Yet I think of incarnational prayer as working for others -- not myself.

I'm so very good at working out the stuff in my head -- but much of life needs to be worked out with the hands. Sorting thoughts paralleling sorting laundry. And maybe even just sitting, quietly. Today, after an unusually bad thunderstorm, we were without power for a few hours -- it's light outside and beautiful and there is complete silence. No buzzing of the dryer, no whirr of the air conditioning, no sounds from the refrigerator. It was very quiet, except for the birds outside and the dripping rain from the eaves. The experience of silence was amazing. I realized how little silence exists in this world. I sat and soaked it up for a while. How can we really listen without that silence?

I've been watching little kitty. She really is sleeping a lot. Here's a picture of her slipping off the sofa, head first (asleep). The silence was broken momentarily.



Here's a picture of her after so goes back to the dozing. She's cracking an eye, letting me know that I'm bothering her.