Last Friday afternoon I was tearing around the house like a bat out of hell, tossing things in a suitcase helter-skelter and keeping one eye on the clock.  I had an appointment with God in western Tennessee.  In a moment of weakness, I’d signed up for a guided silent retreat at a convent somewhere on the way to Memphis.  All I knew is that it was two and a half hours from Franklin and it didn’t take second grade math to figure out that I was leaving too late to arrive on time.  Sigh! Not the best way to begin my weekend of retreat from manic modernity to silent listening.

Welcome to my world.  Too much to do – good things, most of them – and simply not enough time to get them done.  Was I nuts to waste two perfectly good days doingnothing? It made no sense (or maybe all the sense in the world) to intentionally carve out forty-eight hours – three days really – of a precious weekend to go away and just be still.  That is, to shut up and listen to God. Continue reading