simply being - so many words

Living simply has led me to think about a number of things.

Maybe the fact I’ve not been blogging has actually fitted in as I’ve been trying to concentrate on what I’m doing – being present and in the moment.

Other friends have been doing a photo a day, which I’ve loved checking out and reading the reflections but I was without my phone at the start of Lent. But this is what I’m doing!

I do now have a tv. Though so far have just watched things that I’ve really wanted to watch and this evening I’ve also been sewing while watching Mr Selfridges – housewife practice! Not that I think I’ll be a housewife.

I’m doing a session at the MWiB Swanwick Conference in April and I want to talk about multitasking – something women are known for being able to do. Living simply in Lent is the opposite.

I went on retreat in half term, a time of prayer, food, sleep, mass, (I was with Catholic Nuns) and quiet. I went to find silence, I hardly spoke aloud for 48 hours, just little bits of chit chat at meal times and communal prayer and singing softly. The repetition of a certain chant after every reading “praise to the Father almighty, to his son Jesus Christ the Lord, to the Spirit that dwells in our hearts, both now and forever, amen.” There was one thing that I had a problem with though. There are too many words. I took books to read, I wrote poetry which I never do, shutting my brain up is hard work. Not multitasking is like not using words. Simply being.

At the World Mission Forum, of which I am now a member, we talked a lot about being. A mission partner told us of the advise she was given - just to be.

We’re about half way through Lent.  So I’m sure I still have loads left to learn.

But here is the first poem I wrote while with the nuns, when trying to escape the words.

Words, So many words

Hello, how are you?

How’s your day?

So many words

What’s going on?

What are you up to?

Can I join you?

So many words

Books and texts

Emails and phone calls

What’s going on?

So many words

Where, what, why, when

Silence?

So many words

So many

So