a deserted place to rest a while

Jer 23:1-6; Ps 23 The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I should want; Mark 6:30-34

"The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.  He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."


A deserted place to rest a while...

A deserted place: a place  where one can be alone with him/herself, removed from the daily goings and comings of life.  A place of solitude, absence of human activity, an uninhabited place.

to rest: to have the opportunity to recollect, to think about life and one's place in life.  The ability to let the debris of life lived settle to increase visibility.

a while: short time, not too long; just enough time

Jesus thought it was important for the apostles t remove themselves from the business of their tasks and from the constant presence of the people.  The noise of living and doing needed to give way to the silence of being.

Prayer is a fascinating reality.

There are two things I have come to realize when it comes to prayer.

One: people for the most part yearn to pray, to develop prayer life and to set aside time for prayer.
two: people also avoid that which they yearn for.

We year for it and we practice avoidance of it.
It is strange.

Why?

Remember the beginning of the story of salvation.  Adam and Eve have an untroubled friendship with God; they walked together in communion.

After the fall things changed.  When god draws near to man, man hides himself. (Gen 3:8-10)

It is this reality we have inherited.  We yearn for communion with GOd and at the same time we are overcome by the possibility of that communion.  We practice avoidance.

Thus, prayer becomes a battle.

It is a battle for time, a battle of distractions, a battle of dryness, a battle of silence and surrender.
Time:  we must set aside time to pray.  We need to be intentional and faithful to this time.

Sticking with it strengthens our will.  Even when we give some time, we are acknowledging God as giver of time.  It is a gift back to the one who gave it.  Even God rested on the 7th day.  We imitate God.

Distractions:  distractions are normal.  We are so engaged in life with so many things at hand and rubbing up against people on a daily basis that distractions are common when we slow down.
IT is like stepping into a pond. The mud gets stirred up and for a while it remains mess.  But after sometime, the particles settle and visibility begins to return.  This is what happens to us.

Distractions is really the settling of all that we have been involved in.  Slowly, visibility returns and we get to see ourselves as we are and ultimately as God sees us.

This is the true gift of prayer.   When distractions arise, we should not be bothered but simply make them apart of our prayer experience in the moment.  Beside, if they are part of our life then God wants to be a part of it as well.

Dryness: Periods of dryness are important.  Perhaps, they may be the most import an time of prayer. Often times we may complain about not feeling anything in prayer, having no enthusiasm,  or experiencing no consolation.  Dryness is important because God is refining our desires and purifies them.  It helps us to be there for God and not just for us.

Silence:  Silence is one of the most important aspects of a healthy life.  Mother Teresa teaches us that to be bale to pray, we must learn to be silent.  We must love silence.

In 1978, the Surgeon General put out a warning, "calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience. noise must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere."

In 2007, Intel started an exercise in which it made a group of its employees to have 4 hours of uninterrupted silence with no phones, no emails, just time to be quiet and think,  They found it to increase peace and productivity.

In a recent New York times opinion article entitle "The joy of quiet" it was noted that there seems to be an increasing trend to seek silence and solitude.  People are paying up to 2300 dollars a night to stay in a place where there is no internet, no tv, and no cell phone coverage. We are over loaded.

Noise pollution is all around us.  This is why Pope Benedict has been inviting us to develop an increase awareness of the necessity of silence.  He tells us, "When messages and information are plentiful, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary."


He continues by telling us, "it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds."


It is only then are we able to cultivate our inner lives, our interior life.


This is what Jesus was doing with the Apostles when he invited them to come away for a while to a deserted place and rest. 


We must remember that prayer is our answer to God. It is not so much about telling God what to do or even listening to what God wants us to do.  IT is simply being in his presence. 


When i was on retreat in Feb., the retreat master would begin each prayer experience with the following, "Lord, I know you are here; I know you hear me and you see me.  I come before you with reverence and ask for pardon of my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful."


I have adopted that I'm my own prayer moments and it has been especially beneficial to just remind myself God is present.  I don't have to look for him, i just have to be and not do for a moment.


Now if you notice in the gospel.  JEsus was able to respond to the needs of the people with compassion.  WHy?  Becasue perhaps because he had disposed himself to silence and prayer on a regular basis. 


Prayer and silence gives us the ability to look upon the world with the compassionate lenses and to see as God sees and thus act accordingly. 




As Blasie Pascal once noted: "all man's problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone."