Sunday, March 22, 2009
Sunday Reflection: The Value of Quiet
Today, a lot of us will go to church. There will be singing and preaching and no small amount of socializing, and all of that is important to many people's spiritual lives. It is good that we have a place to go to get that.
However, for me, that is not all I need. To really feel spiritually whole, I also require a period of quiet reading and reflection, away from the deluge of media and even other people. One of my faults is that I don't create that time very often.
Those moments are easily seen in Jesus's life, as he steals away to reflect and pray. In the last chapter of my book, I talk about one instance of this that was remarkably public. One advantage I had in writing about Christ and the death penalty is that unlike many other social issues, he directly encountered this one-- In John 8, he comes upon a legal execution and stops it by challenging the moral right of a sinning public to inflict death on another. In the midst of this, though, he stops to think about it. He withdraws from the crowd and appears to be writing in the dust. Only then, having quietly contemplated the issue, does he answer.
Too often, I jump right to the answer.
However, for me, that is not all I need. To really feel spiritually whole, I also require a period of quiet reading and reflection, away from the deluge of media and even other people. One of my faults is that I don't create that time very often.
Those moments are easily seen in Jesus's life, as he steals away to reflect and pray. In the last chapter of my book, I talk about one instance of this that was remarkably public. One advantage I had in writing about Christ and the death penalty is that unlike many other social issues, he directly encountered this one-- In John 8, he comes upon a legal execution and stops it by challenging the moral right of a sinning public to inflict death on another. In the midst of this, though, he stops to think about it. He withdraws from the crowd and appears to be writing in the dust. Only then, having quietly contemplated the issue, does he answer.
Too often, I jump right to the answer.
