I have about a two-minute commute to work \u2013 walking. For the most part, that is a good thing and most people are jealous when they find out where I live. Every time I get on the Trans Canada and realize that people drive that highway everyday, I am deeply grateful for my commute.<\/p>\n
Every once in a while, I need to travel to a meeting and head down the highway. While I used to crank up the tunes on such a commute, for the past several years I have found great pleasure and peace in turning the audio off and travelling in silence.<\/strong><\/span> It gives me time to decompress, to ponder the blessings I have, and it actually keeps me calmer when traffic backs up or someone cuts me off or rides a little too close behind me (no, I am not one of those people who sits in the left lane with my car on cruise).<\/p>\n In a blog post from which I borrowed the title for this, Richard Rohr writes:<\/p>\n Silence has a life of its own. It is not just that which is around words and underneath images and events. It is a being in itself to which we can relate and become intimately familiar. Philosophically, we would say being<\/em> is that foundational quality which precedes all other attributes. Silence is at the very foundation of all reality\u2014<\/strong><\/span>naked being, if you will. Pure being is that out of which all else comes and to which all things return. Or as I like to say, Reality is the closest ally of God.<\/p>\n There are several ways in which I try to build silence into my daily and weekly routines.<\/p>\n Since I am an early riser, most mornings at about 5:15 am, I sit with a cup of hot lemon water in my dark living room, spending time reading a portion of Scripture and silently sit with God.<\/p>\n Being an early riser, I go to bed early as well. Especially at times when I have stressors in my day, I look forward to going into the silence of my bedroom, sharing the things on my mind with God, and seeking His face and comfort.<\/p>\n There are ways in which I believe I experience silence as a way of being, as referred to above that is not devoid of noise. I don\u2019t know if Richard Rohr would agree with this, but for me, it is true. There are times when we have a houseful of people or at our first gathering as staff in the new school year when it is very noisy with a myriad of conversations.<\/strong><\/span> I will often stand off to the side and find solace in the chatter, but feel completely still in my being.<\/p>\n I try to get outside on most recesses and noon hours even when I am not officially on supervision. There is obviously a lot of noise as students engage in all kinds of play. Sometimes students will come to talk to me or ask for my help with a problem. But there are times when I can stand and simply watch. Seeing kids running, playing, and laughing quiets and feeds my soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have about a two-minute commute to work \u2013 walking. For the most part, that is a good thing and most people are jealous when they find out where I live. Every time I get on the Trans Canada and realize that people drive that highway everyday, I am deeply grateful for my commute. Every […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":4872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,33],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-4871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-elementary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}With a Cup and a Bible<\/h2>\n
Being Still In the Noise<\/h2>\n