The Season of Lent invites us to come clean before God.   I find that in order to do this necessary "house-cleaning" of the soul it is good and right to carve out some intentional time for reflection and introspection with Holy Spirit guidance.     Genuine introspection will lead us to honest confession which, in turn, leads to a liberating of the weighted soul.

While I am aware that my soul requires this reflection time, there is a problem:   I am a type-A personality.     Folks like us, in the interest of time attempt to multi-task.    We have been known ,for example, to brush our teeth, read the newspaper and go to the rest room simultaneously!    We have things to do and the world to change.     Who is going to "tend the store" if we are away or if we aren't vigilant?     So, we continue to ignore and avoid "sabbath time."    Authentic  sabbath time, which facilitates and fosters solitude and silence, gets displaced and abused by too- busy people.    We end up caught up in a noisy exterior and a noisy interior....even our alone thoughts are fast-paced and loud!

It requires intentionality and personal discipline to step off the treadmill in order to reflect and renew.    But the results of taking and making the time to do so are like fresh air to the lungs!     As a person and as a  pastor, I know that I need to come apart before I come apart.  I have finally learned through my mind thick and dull (and with the help of some good spiritual guides) that if I do not spend some regular and extended periodic time with God in solitude and silence, then I am not equipped nor prepared to share with nor lead the people God has given me to lead and nurture.    The under shepherd must be nurtured and led by the Good Shepherd.    You must be fed in order to have something with which to feed others.

This week I will again take a mini-spiritual retreat...to come apart so that I do not come apart.    It will be a spiritual and a physical challenge for me, once again, to practice solitude and silence.   Even though part of me resists these spiritual disciplines, my soul craves this time.    And, as a type-A personality, I will once again spend the first portion of this "retreat" working my to-do list (getting it, hopefully, out of my neurotic system) -- engaging in this "human doing" stuff, so that I may spend the final portion in the therapeutic, nurturing time of just being with my Creator...so that I may be re-created for God's plans and purposes.  

May our Lenten journey include time of solitude and silence that we may hear and heed the still small voice of God.