Hold it!

Sometimes the first thing I want to do is close my eyes. Turn off my ears. Hold very still. Listen, but with my other senses. My skin. My heart. The blood pumping in my ears.


What do I learn? What discoveries are made?


There seems to me a rather wide gap between what is selfish and what is self-aware. The bridge that is built between these two needs to be kept by a wise gatekeeper. Yet, I find that it is sometimes much harder to pass to Mnt. Self-Aware than it is to laze on Selfish Island.


There is a bit of wisdom tucked away in the need to be aware of oneself, wisdom that opens some rather challenging doors of self-gift.


It is often remarked upon that the small things within your closest friends or family members that irritate you or draw your disdain are often the very things within yourself that need to be amended. We don't always (or even often) appreciate the truth of our own weaknesses or failures flung in our faces. It is not very consoling to be so reminded of the things we must struggle with.


Yet, how can we be a "one-who-gives," when we are not a "one-who-knows"? You cannot give what you do not have, and you cannot adequately give what you do not know you have.


Let me be more practical for a moment; if I want to be a good soccer player, I must first practice many hours and train so that I know I have the skills to offer to my team or future team. If I wish to sing I must train and stretch myself so that I know what skills I bring to a song. If I want to be a friend, I need to know myself in order to know my own opinions, thoughts, dreams, desires, etc... which I can than offer to my friend.


In essence, we cannot reasonably approach relationship with others if we do not first have an awareness, or a relationship, with ourselves. How can I relate to another if it is not first from myself? Likewise, how could I receive the gift of another (be that a kind word, some good advice, a listening ear, or any other shared experience with a friend) if I do not understand how to receive it, or where to apply it?


I suppose this seems funny, or at least obvious. Yet, I find that our culture is an open invitation to distraction. I have been known from time to time to say that I have ADD tendencies, but I know that is not true. What I do know is that many people struggle to be "present" to day to day tasks, to coworkers, friends, family, shopping, driving, etc... because we do not have the experience of practicing stillness. We do not have endless hours of quiet, or even one hour. We do not have days without entertainment, or even moments. We do not have to wait very long for anything, and when we do, we are either impatient or distracted.


Sometimes I like to imagine what it must have been like for those first American pioneers who settled a bit further west into the country. No electricity, just oil lamps and fire wood. In the winters, especially in the areas where heavy snows are, there must have been little to no venturing out, especially for women and children. A house the size of a small room, with two, three, four, five, or more people sitting inside. For months. Without being able to leave. Can you even stand the feeling that is creeping over you thinking about that? I think I would be crazy in the first few days!


Yet, for whatever struggles and failures and pains that type of living must have been, those who endured it most certainly obtained certain virtues we, as a culture, do not value or posses. For whatever the suffering, those who lived in such simplistic ways certainly had the strength of mind to hold their attention for long periods of time. I can only imagine that they were experts in various skills and trades, for all the time they would have devoted to practice and improvement.


I am not trying to advocate for cutting off water supplies and trying to recreate the 1800s, but I am admiring what I know I need to learn from them.


It is a skill that I find most needed when in prayer, when communication is at it's "least explicit" or at least not the typical form of conversing. I do not get phone calls or skype messages or facebook inboxes or texts from the Lord. I have to find somewhere quiet, peaceful, and secluded when I want to speak with Him. I have to still my mind from it's 6,000 mile and hour runs. I have to breathe. I have to close my eyes to the craziness of life around me and turn off my ears. I have to come to myself, come to know who I am, and I have to be honest with that knowledge before the Lord.


One of the reasons I believe so firmly that this type of stillness needs to be practiced more and not given up or forgotten is because there is so much we still need to discover about ourselves! I never leave a time of prayer and peaceful communication with the Lord and am not surprised by some level of knowledge or insight or confidence in myself that I did not know before. Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in Gaudium et Spes, "Christ...fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear...[and] that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself" (22-24). 


This is the integral and immediate point: that when we enter a certain stillness and allow ourselves to be aware, we come to know both the Lord and ourselves much more certainly. Likewise, this knowledge gained enables us to simultaneously love the Lord, our neighbor and ourselves more fully. It is always easier to be patient and sincere with a friend when we know someone else was just patient and sincere with us. It is also always easier to forgive a friend or make great efforts to help a friend when one has done the same for us. And someone has done the same for us, and much more (that is, Jesus Christ).


So if you find that in the mornings you cannot keep your head on straight long enough to remember to pack your lunch before you rush to the car, or you cannot recall to get quarters for doing your laundry because of the laundry list of things you have to do in one day, chill. Stop. Hold it. Relax and breathe. Say a "Hail Mary," or try to imagine the Cross. Picture your idea of heaven. Best of all, find a chapel with Eucharistic Adoration. Stop for ten minutes and just be with Him. Stop for an hour and really pray. Whatever efforts you make, let them be for the stillness. 


When we are bearers of peace in our hearts, the peace that only Jesus gives, we will be amazed at what we learn. We will discover the strength to address our weaknesses that we find so unattractive and to work on them. We will discover the determination to improve what things we find lacking in ourselves. We will discover the patience to endure things which are hard or sorrowful or trying. We will find that others recognize in us a sense of relief and comfort. We will be like miniature safe havens for the very weary in our world. We will be places of peace for them because we will know Who is our peace and where our peaces comes from. We will be able to give what we have, and know what we have to offer. 


The cliche "take time to smell the roses" is just so true. Take time to calm down, and look around. Take time to look around inside yourself. Take time to invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate your heart. Breathe in deeply the fragrance of the Love of God, which is potent and stirring. Do not let the culture of progress, deadlines, noise and distraction leave you alone and unsure of your own self because there was no time for that. Make time for that. Self-reflection leads to self-awareness, and self-awareness means that you can spend more time in the heights and less time trying to make it across that shaky bridge that can lead to selfishness.