Silent Digestions

Just returned from a silence treated at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This is seriously one of my favorite spots in the world. Every time I go there the environment and the monastic life fosters such a haven for rest and spiritual rekindling. It'd definitely something everyone should experience at sometime.
check it out www.monks.org

Silence is perhaps one of the most simple yet most missed out on disciplines of our day. It literally is amazing what can come out of the silence. It's almost as if it gives opportunity for your soul to catch up with your brain and heart when given the quiet chance. It's something we can practice fairly simply but yet it is such a challenging practice to actually engage in because of our noisy world that lures us. Silence is like digestion, imagine if you never had the chance to digest your food.... this is vital to your life!

This is why I like to read slower. The temptation, especially when you have a good book, is to just blow through it, to suck out all the good information. But there is something about letting the words marinate, letting them affect you, change you. Too often perhaps we just read something and go "hmmm that's cool." and that's it.

Silence is letting your soul marinate in the life that is flying by you at light speed.

At one point on the trip I went for a hike, as I usually do. I love the fact that there are so many trails. And it intrigues me even further to think about Thomas Merton living out there walking those hills and writing. And guys like Henri Nouwen who came there often as-well. What awesome Christians. Not to mention, part of the way I worship best is in nature.

So anyway I hike a different direction than usual and find myself eventually following a path "to the cross..." the sign says. Later a sign reveals it's "cross knob." Well I finally turn a corner through the woods and realize i'm now about to go from easy hiking to serious up-hill Monk version of cliffhanger stuff. At least that's what it felt like when my out-of-shape father-to-be body gets to the top! (that sympathy weight is no joke!)
But when I arrived at the top I realized just how far up I was and the view was magnificent! Up there, sure enough, was a cross. Which apparently used to sit atop the Abbey years earlier.

It is true, life's greatest challenges hold way into greater perspectives and magnificent heights.... if you will see them through to the end.

I'm learning just how sacred each moment really is and the weight of glory that every day carries with it.