Be still ...

On Saturday, I picked up a friend to go to the gym so that we could walk on the treadmills together. The last time we'd gone though, there had not been two treadmills together so half the time we hadn't been able to walk and talk which is our practice. So, I thought about taking a book just in case that happened again, and was about to pick up an assigned reading for class next week to take with me, Addicted to Hurry by Kirk Jones, when I realized the ludicrous irony of that.

Tonight at dinner at seminary, a classmate came over for a hug with the same irony. "Nancy, I've been looking for your calm face. I'm only on page 9 of Addicted to Hurry, and I have to hurry to read the rest of it for class tomorrow morning!"
Of course, I'm still reading the book tonight. But I came to this quote on p. 54, "Significantly, Hebrew theology teaches that deepening faith cannot occur apart from the purposeful choice to be still."

And this editing of the famous verse occurred to me: "Be still and know that 'I am': God." In the Hebrew, another name for God is "I am." This is how you know yourself, your divinity, the image of God in you, and God: start now: be still.
How hard it is for me just to be still, to savor, to be spacious.
Right now, I take a moment and I am still. God? I am? Are you--there? here?

What does it take for each of us, for any of us, to be still? God is there: I am--in the stillness.

May you each be able to find a time of stillness in the coming day.
Blessings and peace,
Nancy