The conference is interesting, inspiring, the scenery lovely and the weather perfect. The food is delicious and there's lots of it. But each day I realize I am just tired. Taking on additional spiritual and intellectual information is not easy and I'm cutting out on lots of things, losing interest in some of the ones I chose initially to do.
Last night I attended a session on "being still." It was one of those situations where Murphy's Law was running rampant and the facilitator, although outwardly calm, was juggling his presentation internally. Ceiling fans with only one setting—high—kept blowing out the candle. Originally twenty people had signed up, and the perfect circle of chairs kept expanding in uneven lumps as more and more gate-crashers arrived (me among them) on the spur of the moment. The sound system kept picking up intermittent drumming from another building and the controls had to be located and shut down. A cel phone rang. We were in the middle of a deep meditation when he had to bring us back to the room for an announcement... "is so and so in the group?" an emergency message, as the Kanuga staff tried to locate the individual.
Metaphors for life, we call these instances. A specific session on being still is bombarded with outward distractions... some of them annoying, some necessary... but not now. So it is in life. At the breakfast table this morning we were congratulating the facilitator on his equanimity when a woman mentioned that this was what had happened to Jesus. He'd take hmself off to a quiet place to pray, only to be followed, stopped on the way, interrupted. His ministry was in those interruptions. Another important concept to ponder when I am not so tired...
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If you get a chance to attend a Friends Meeting on a regular basis, or even once, do so. They are very good at setting up quiet spaces and maintaining silence in between people speaking. sometimes, an entire meeting can go without anyone saying a thing!
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