mosquito thoughts

i lived deliberately this past Sunday.

i went to an event at the Scarritt-Bennett Center where the theme was to focus on common ground through practices, instead of theology. the choice for the day was walking and silent prayer.

one of the leaders really said some things that stuck with me:

• active prayer is the kind we do most often, where we're doing all the talking and not listening. sometimes the only silent prayer we get is on Sundays when the preacher says, "now let's have a moment of silence" and then the organ starts playing 5 seconds later.
  
  
• sometimes the hardest task is to quiet the mind and HUSH the "mosquito thoughts" that come flying in and out of our heads. bzzzt! "what am i having for lunch today?" bzzt! "which way should i drive home?" bzzzt! "do i need to stop by the store an get milk?" bzzzt! "everyone else seems to be walking faster, maybe i sould speed up." bzzzt "i sure hope we don't have to walk this thing again." bzzzt! you have to swat them down, or as Ari said in small group tonight when i shared this story, "you need some Jesus-OFF" yeah, spiritual warfare spray! what a groovy idea. just spray the demons and they go a runnin!
  
  
• we walked a labyrinth. he cautioned us that impatience, expectations, and constrictions would try to come up as we walked. part of the process of walking into the labyrinth is letting go of all that. one way he suggested we combat those 3 things and the "mosquito thoughts" that can be distractions was to just ask questions of God. turn everything into a question, because sooner or later you run out of questions and perhaps God reveals to you what is really important for you to dwell on. then you come to the center - illumination. and as you walk out - contemplation.
  

• nugget: practices are meditative tools which lend themselves to contemplation. and contemplation is a gift from God.
  
  
• Pay Attention. Pay attention to what is going on around you, and what is going on in you. what do you really hear?
  

i really enjoyed the day of practicing silence. i admit, it is rare for me. something almost always has to be "on" around me.

Beth Nielsen Chapman said (at the workshop i attended a month ago-ish), "Mindless television, like sitcoms and such, can be a kind of desperate meditation." that really stuck with me. i'm thinkin about "unplugging" for a few days. after i watch the 2 movies i rented the other day of course ;)