Tuesday/Wednesday 21-22 April

Days 37 and 38.

The reason I didn't get a post published yesterday was because I spent the whole evening participating in the recording of an episode for YWAM TV. They have created a mini series of alternative 'talk show' style episodes, recorded over Zoom and relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. It's a great idea and I've loved the ones I've seen so far.

The episode I took part in is around the question of connecting to God during this season. What does it look like for us to create space for being with God when we are confined to the house? When we have young kids at home, who need support in their schooling or naturally want to be entertained because they can't go out. Or when we are living in a shared space with people who all have different personalities and rhythms of when they get up in the morning, or turn off the TV at night. Or when we live alone and can spend long hours on screen, and be so much in our own heads. How do we find life-giving ways to make the most of this time, and to wake up to the presence of God in our lives?

There were four of us on the call, an interviewer and three people offering slightly different perspectives, and I think it went well. We each described our own patterns during this season and made suggestions that others might find helpful. And yet, predictably perhaps, I woke up this morning thinking of all the things we could have said and didn't.

I want to let people know that there are great resources out there, but that they don't have to use them. I want to release them from feeling that they have to do more, add more into their discombobulated days. Instead, I want them to receive permission - if they need it, and many of us feel we do - to ease into a place of greater spaciousness.

Rather than encouraging people in a rhythm of doing, I want to encourage them in a rhythm of not doing, of releasing, of letting go.

What would it look like for us to leave space? Quiet space, empty space. To switch off our devices, to refuse to fill our days with extra meetings, to let the noise of this crazy time just get still. Of course, there are things that need to be done, there are important and helpful connections to be made online. But how about choosing not to overfill the space we might otherwise enjoy, to allow ourselves to settle and to become aware of the ways God might want to make his presence felt in our lives?

How would it feel for us to allow ourselves to be stripped? Of all the extraneous stuff with which we cover and fill our lives, all the activities that make us feel productive, valuable, necessary. What if we allowed ourselves to feel what is beneath all our activity and relating? Could it be that something true about us would make itself known? And would we be okay with that? To feel it, to be present to the truth of it, and to let God be with us there?

I am afraid that we risk continuing to numb ourselves. Filling our heads with noise and distraction, turning away from what is uncomfortable about ourselves and our reality, rather than turning aside to God who wants to meet us right here.

I love the meditation app I use in the morning. I am grateful for the reading app that takes me through the lectionary. It's great to have someone lead me through an Examen in the evening. There are so many podcasts, so many people with such rich things to say. It's all good.

But to what extent can I be still with God and allow some space for him to meet me, just us? Could I sit by the fire-pit and ask him what it would mean to turn aside to him in this season? Perhaps I could ask him, as I am washing dishes, what needs cleaning from my life right now? Maybe I could sit  with my plate of food and as I eat alone, in the quiet, ask him how he wants to nourish me with his goodness during this time?

It's not that we need to do more, to try harder. It's actually that we need to stop trying, stop filling, and pay attention to what he is doing. Just stop, and notice. Lean in and listen.

And breathe.