Last year right before Annual Conference (the yearly Methodist Conference at Lake Junaluska) I went with some friends to South Carolina, which involved a two-hour road trip. We were driving back late at night after a day of pottery making and ax throwing and I sensed that everyone was tired. Someone in the car asked about Annual Conference and how the preparations were going for the worship services since I was chairing the Annual Conference Worship Committee. I decided I would fill the silence with every single detail about Conference in order to keep them awake on the way home. I am relatively certain they regretted that ask completely. Because for the next 1.5 hours I talked incessantly. By the time we arrived back in Denver, everyone in the car knew more than they could ever desire about Conference. Later they joked with me that they didn’t think I was ever going to stop talking. And they wondered if their four-cylinder engine car could go 140 mph to cut the drive time in half. (And they were right, I’m pretty sure I could talk forever). I remarked that I thought I was being helpful on that journey by filling the silence with chatter to keep them awake. They responded, “Sometimes silence is ok.”
Over the next 40 days we are going to travel on a journey. A metaphorical journey as we explore the inner depths of our lives and where are we disconnecting with Divine Love.
We will ask ourselves, “What do I need to do so that I can grow closer to and in Love over the next 40 days? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to begin? How will this impact my life?”
It would be easy to fill the space of the next 40 days with excessive chatter, ignoring the silence that oftentimes makes us confront parts of our lives we don’t want to wrestle with. Yet if we want to experience the power of the cross and the beauty of resurrection we need to take a journey, embrace the silence, and eradicate the noise. For it is in the still, quiet moments that we can more clearly hear the nudges of God.
“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”