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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Are You Sitting Down?
By webmaster @ 12:01 AM :: 792 Views :: 1 Comments :: Nina Frost

I write this from a Franciscan retreat center in Northern California, where my husband and I are spending a couple of quiet days. There is one other guest here on a personal retreat, a young woman who is both a middle school art teacher and a fitness trainer. Her days start at 4:30 am and are long and full and frenetic, and she is always on the go.

She came here, just for 24 hours, because she knows that whole months can go by without any breathing room for herself. She admitted to us she knows she really has to learn to slow down occasionally, to catch up with what is inside her.

So she told herself that as she lopes around the grounds, running, walking, and otherwise moving swiftly in her exploration of this lovely place, that whenever she goes by a bench, and there are many of them, that she will sit down. She will deliberately break her breakneck speed habit and… pause. And pause again. For however long. (She is doing this despite the wet rains and the even wetter benches.)

I was struck by her honesty and her insight. She knows, at a relatively young age, that her passion and drive and goal-setting abilities need to be tempered by something that cannot be measured--by the deep invitations of stillness and quiet, however odd, or threatening, or strangely welcome they might be. For her, stopping at a bench to sit down was a new discipline.

I tend to think of necessary contemplative time as complex to arrange… I have to fit it in, go somewhere, clear a schedule. When in fact, “benches” are everywhere: either literally, or in metaphoric form everywhere I turn: this tree, this meal, this slant of light, this pause for a conscious breath.

She is learning to love benches (and their new demands) as a form of balance. Talk about a Lenten practice even before Lent… I invite you to consider where you need to “sit down,”—what is the bench that calls out to you to pause on, so you can hear something else than what you usually hear?

And yes, especially writing from a retreat, I cannot help but mention the upcoming Marble Women’s Retreat: “Holy Balance in the Midst of Change.” It promises to be chockfull of benches, and surprises, and fortification for the journey. Maybe it is calling to you at this time.

In the meantime, look around for a place to sit… to be still and know.

Comments

By SniffNY @ Friday, February 18, 2011 6:03 PM

Thank you Nina for writing. It was a tangled week and to read your blog on a Friday evening was downright soothing. No pressure, write when you can, but please know that there is something tremendously soulful about your writing and I for one am very thankful.

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