Focus

I want to own myself.  I want to be fully in control of my actions.  I want to make my choices deliberately, consciously, not by rote learning or automatic defense mechanisms.

I am often avoidant without knowing that I am being avoidant.  I am unconscious and in-deliberate in it.  Many of my feelings are still instantly suppressed.  This is a new depth of self-awareness.  It is  like journeying to a deeper level of a darkened castle in a video game.  I do not know in which rooms I will find the demons but I know most by name: avoidance, dishonesty, justification, self-righteousness.  They are all defenses of fear.

Bit by bit God is illuminating the rooms in which they are held.  I needn't be afraid of them.  They are known to me.  They have served to protect me.  They have watched me grow.  They are only waiting for me to release them into the hands of God.  Like children who have been separated from a beloved parent, they run from their rooms to greet me, happy they no longer have to be on guard and acting in extremes but are freed to bless my life with the assets they offer when used in moderation.

I am coming to know myself more fully and to appreciate the wealth in my life experiences.   I will never own myself one hundred percent of the time but I can be grateful for the process of self-discovery which brings not only knowledge of my shortcomings but also nurtures the growth of foundling capabilities and transforms old skills into expertise.

Where I focus my time, thought and effort is where I experience growth.  Am I using my time wisely to develop the qualities, skills and expertise that I say I desire?  This is the question I must ask myself again and again.

chapels

What makes a chapel, a chapel, I ask myself?  I come here seeking peace, silence, tranquility.  I look around the room.  I see the stained glass art hanging on the wall.   Beneath it is a long wood table.  A single vase with a dry arrangement rests at one end.  At the other is a guest book.  I recall turning pages in that book, reading some of the entries, the reasons others had come here.  Some were grieving the illness or loss of a loved one.  Some were seeking solitude, answers or guidance.  I recall reading the entry of an employee who had visited on her last day.  She left a testimony of what her work had meant.  She had come to say goodbye.  She had come to remember and to be remembered.  Feeling inspired, I wrote my own entry that day.  Remembering this makes me smile.  I continue scanning the room.  In front of me is a table made from a tree trunk upon which my water bottle sits.  I am sitting in one of five chairs arranged in a circle around it.  There is a couch against one of the walls with a side table and lamp.  The couch and chairs are upholstered in light shades of blue, the walls painted a calming green.  There is a place for Catholics to kneel and pray and a rug for Muslim prayer.  In one corner is a cabinet made of a warmly stained wood.  The upper half contains a historical display of religious texts.  I take this all in and decide that it is not the things in the room, exactly, which make this a chapel.  It is the subtraction of things.  

There are no discussions to be had here, no meetings, no supporting rationals to be given.  Here, I need not be “on”, ready to go, shoes laced.  The decor, it contributes, but its contribution is in that it is almost meant to go unnoticed.  Yet, I notice this.

I ask myself, is it the absence of things which allows for the presence of God?  If I took any particular moment in my life and subtracted what was going on, would I not find this same space?  Would I not find God?  

I come to the chapel seeking silence.  So then, am I not seeking God?  And when I am seeking God, do I not go to quiet places, to the wilderness?  Do I not go alone?  To give God my attention, I go to quiet places and I go alone. 

Meditation is a place of silence.

Meditation is a place of solitude.

Meditation is a place where I can be with God.

Meditation is where I go now, to seek silence, to seek solitude, to seek God.