I Need the Answer NOW!

I'm not an overly patient person, though I do believe I've gained a bit of it over the years--as a wife, a mother, and a co-worker--mainly out of necessity.

One area in which I still struggle with working at patience is when I am feeling an emotion whose source I can't immediately identify. I don't know if is part of our American culture or just a human trait, but I've noticed that so many of us become self-involved in needing to know why we are feeling some emotion at a particular moment. "I'm not happy today. I wonder if it is because it is cloudy outside, or because I'm facing a big challenge at work. Or maybe it's because my spouse isn't paying enough attention to me, or maybe I ate something that didn't agree with me, or (my favorite) maybe I'm just depressed." (I'm not talking about clinical depression here.) It's only recently that I've come to realize that trying to figure out through my intellect why I am feeling something isn't always the best way to find an answer.

Please understand, I am not minimizing feelings. They are a gift from God and are an essential part of our humanness. What I am talking about here is the ego's need to be in charge of our feelings. It becomes, in fact, a way to get up in my head and not really be aware of what my heart, body and spirit are trying to tell me. When I let my intellect take over it becomes the great "I" trying to figure out what's going on instead of getting quiet and opening myself up to experiencing what is passing through me.

I have always loved the phrase "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10) When I find myself trying to "fix" the particular place I happen to be in, I sometimes stop and say this phrase. I believe it is God telling me to "Quiet down that over-active ego of yours, get calm and breathe into My loving stillness."

It is in the calm solitude of silence that I begin to accept my feelings and discover that I don't always need to over-analyze where I am at any given moment. The clarity will come if I allow myself to feel the feelings without having to understand them that very instant. I would even suggest that sometimes a feeling is occurring because God is loving us and guiding us in ways that are far beyond our comprehension. And if the feeling happens to be because we are going against our principles, or we are turning away from God, we are far more likely to be aware of what is going on if we stop and let God be in the silence with us.

I had what I consider a "God moment" with this particular Biblical phrase just this past week. I had started writing this very blog post about being still and being with God a few days ago, but had stopped writing to attend one of my 12-step program meetings. During the meeting someone said, "You know, when I get all caught up in my head and try to figure things out, I often say 'Be still and know that I am God' and I calm down immediately." I found that an interesting and inspiring coincidence.

The very next day, after another one of my 12-step program meetings, for some reason I was compelled to do my noontime prayer and meditation outside. You need to know that I hate being cold, and even though it was sunny, it was a chilly day in Charlotte, with a brisk little wind thrown in to add to the cold. I thought about where I could go to pray, and remembered that the church I recently joined has a prayer garden. I had walked through the garden several months ago, but not to the particular area I found myself drawn to on this visit. I kept thinking, "It's just too chilly for me to sit out here and pray. I don't want to do this.  Am I going nuts, or something?"

Just then I saw a large gray wall with a cross nearby. As I approached the wall, I read the inscription and gasped. It read: "Be still and know that I am God." I sat down on a bench that faced the wall and that thankfully was in the sun. This was clearly where I needed to be, so I pulled up the hood on my parka, rubbed my hands together, took out my kindle and started reading my prayers. It turned out to be one of the most peaceful afternoons I've had in a long time.

Prayer Wall in the Garden of

St. John's Episcopal Church, Charlotte, NC

The point of my story is simple. When the sound of my own voice fills my head with a myriad of whys and wherefores, I can't make room for God's presence in my life unless I get quiet. Being still gives me a chance to "get empty" so that God can, as the St. Francis Prayer so aptly puts it, "make me an instrument of His [your] peace."

May you have a deeply meaningful Advent season, filled with love, enlightenment and anticipation for the coming of our Lord.