Silence and Fear...

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak..." Job 42:2-4

Today is my "Poustinia" day. It's a old Russian term for a kind of hermit...they were in a way dedicated to prayer and silence for a particular place/city.

Today I spend the day in prayer, and hold a space of silence. It is not until I am silent (and still) that I realize how noisy the world is. We each pursue something and that makes a sound. The hammering is from those pursuing a better physical life,--whether daily survival, or wealth, each hammer saying something. the horns honk from impatience, or fear that someone might get in the way, might interfere with their busy goings. It is all noise.

The Loud Speaker has been playing recordings all day long since 5am (and during the night) until now at 2pm in the afternoon, still showing no signs of stopping. It is calling people to charity, spreading the teachings of Buddha meditations and all around morality. Such sounds seem to fill the air and make silence seem impossible. Strange that a religion known for its meditaions can be so noisy.

Today, if I am honest, is not my internal world just as noisy? Even now as I sit my mind is going, and all this I say is in front of the Lord. How presumptuous am I to think that God would be listening to my racket. Would he not wish for me to cease even for half an hour,to stop my striving and be still and know that God is God. What a fearful thing! Yet instead of allowing this fear to produce wisdom and listening to God's instruction, the choice sits before me, do I choose to push out silence with my prayers, my hopes, my thoughts, my questions, my reality, which in my really ignorant moments I think it sounds good to claim that God loves them, with a mushy love because God Loves me.

Reality is that it says God delights in those who fear Him, that obey Him, that listen to His teaching. How can I be this with no silence, or stillness, with no fear of God?