TIQ: Listening in the silence of your heart

Do not be afraid of the silence of your heart, for it is in your silence that you hear God speaking to you.

A weekend at Worth Abbey

It's the start of lent and what a great way to start it with a retreat! I'm currently in a retreat with the Catholic Society of my university at a Benedictine Abbey in Sussex. We'll be staying here till Sunday afternoon. Today we came at around 8 pm, had our dinner and joined the monks for their evening prayers. The church where they did their prayer was dome like and beautiful. We'll be joining the monks in their prayers throughout the weekend and at the same time do our own prayers as well. That's it for me for now, hope you guys have a good and spirit filled lent. :)

Discussions over dinner

Today I had a discussion with my housemate about religion and since we differ in our beliefs as she was a Muslim and I, a Catholic. We were both curious about the differences in our faith. It was interesting because there are a lot of common points between the two and yes, there are many differences but the most important point is that, we both believe in the same God. They may call him Allah and pray and worship him in a different way but it is still the same, Allah is God and God is Allah.

Having said that, our discussion brought upon many interesting questions about why we do this and why they do that, why we believe in this and how about that. She asked me many simple and obvious questions about my faith and I tried to answer it as best as I could but its sad how I wasn't able to answer it rightly and with more understanding. This made me realize about how vague and lacking my existing Catechism is and reminded me to continue seeking and understand my faith. But I feel really thankful to God for giving me such opportunities to talk to other denominations about our faith and for constantly reminding me to seek him out, to know him more and to understand him more.

Silence

"Sometimes, we take for granted things that feels so natural for us, 

and when it's gone, we realize how much it is worth."

It was through some unfortunate twist of fate and accumulation of exposure to cold that I got my sore throat. I tried to stop it by brewing some ginger to make what we Filipinos call it 'salabat', however, I ended up cooking a make-shift 'Tinola' instead - without the chicken, since I didn't have any, but with chicken cubes and spinach. It had the same effect and soothed my throat for a while. I've also been drinking a lot of honey and lemon tea throughout the night while I was burning the midnight oil trying to catch my coursework deadline the next morning. But alas, the sore throat persisted till the morning and throughout the day. However, with the sore throat and having a hard time talking came many blessings and miracles during the day.

I started my day early, in fact it was really early! I woke up at 3 AM to finish my coursework due in this morning (15-01-2013). At the time, I had only done about a third of the coursework and the deadline was 10 AM. Before toiling through the worksheet, I fixed my bed, grabbed my laptop and made my own niche on my bed surrounded by all of my notes and research to answer the questions. Having made my tea, I opened up the word document and started sorting out all the information I have while listening to the podcast gospel reading for today. Half-way through the questions about 6:30 or  7:00 AM-ish, I was sorting out my excel table and moving it to word when it froze. All the other applications were running properly and it was only MS word that froze up. I tried quitting it the normal way and I was even thinking of shutting my laptop just so I could get the restored copy of it but I didn't. I saw the force quit option thinking, 'yea, this should do... since it's frozen and I can't really do anything, let alone save it, I'll just force quit and restore it.' - This was where it all went wrong. After starting up MS word again, I realized that all the work I've done weren't saved and there was no restore option. Strangely though, I didn't panic and instead I found myself starting it all up again and re-typing all the answers that I could remember. When I finished it all and printed it out, it was already 9:20 AM or so. I quickly got ready, grabbed my bag and went out the house to catch the bus which I thought I would have missed because I was already a few minutes late but God got my back just like he always have and after waiting for a few minutes, the direct bus to the uni came and I made it on time to submit my work.

I should probably mention that at the time and till now as I am writing this, that it is very hard to speak normally. Hence why I decided to limit the use of my voice during the day and try not to talk and offer my silence to God- and I did. Well, I managed to keep my silence for half of the day and I spoke very little in the afternoon. But thinking back on it and till now that I am currently still limiting the use of my voice and staying silent, it is weird. Very weird indeed to not talk, to not sing out loud when I want and to communicate to others as I am used to. It also makes you feel that there are so much more room in your head to think, to ponder, plenty of time to observe and to listen... but it also somehow makes you feel very alone. Yes, there were times where it was awkward to not speak and the occasional urge to talk - and I actually did talk - but despite that, my time of silence allowed me to realise a lot of things, clear out my mind and actually focus during the day. It was somehow refreshing.

I don't know how long I would stay silent, maybe I would last till tomorrow morning? half a day? till the evening? or another day? However long it is or it will be, this is my offering. An offering I make gladly to him, my saviour, my God, my father, my rock, my love and my constant companion.

Cherish everything that you have, all the people you love and meet, all your experiences (no matter how mundane, sad, and tiring it is)  and all of the things you see, for in everything you'll find God's presence there.

Be blessed!