Shhhhh

Silence..

Here is my little hermitage.  A place where I can get away and think, or not think, which would be more apt to explain things.  At the hermitage one hopes to be able to find God.  Yes, God is all around but listening for God one has to be very.. still.  In psalm 46:10 we find this phrase..

"Be still, and know that I am God"

Here I hope to quiet the mind and stir the soul. What does the hermitage look like? I would like to think it is a small cave or stone hut in some far off wilderness but today it is a simple chair out in the apple orchard..

For this spiritual journey Ive chosen several books..

• Holy Bible (of course)
• Hour By Hour (wonderful resource when on the train or bus)
• Tales of St Francis
• Book of Common Prayer (BCP)
• A Guide to Prayer For All Who Seek God
• A Franciscan Reader for the Christian Year
• The Book of Mystical Chapters - Meditations on The Soul's Ascent

Yes, I agree this looks like a lot of books.  Some are for reference like the BCP and Franciscan Reader. However for this journey the main book I will use is "A Guide to Prayer..". It will be the framework that I will use for the next year. The book that I most enjoy reading is "The Book of Mystical Chapters", I like to read one saying before bed and let it turn in my head the next day.

I'm not without my digital devices.  I have a program on my smartphone called "Insight Timer" that lets me set up a series of meditation bells.  Normally electronic devices would be out of the question. What I like about this program is that it releases me from having to estimate how long I have been meditating, all I need to do is hear the bells and know that my 15 or 30 minutes have passed.  Yes, this can also be done just as well with an egg timer by the way but it does not sound as nice.

While not used directly at the hermitage I have run across several great audio books to help me get into the rhythm of mediatation.  The first is "Meditation For Beginners" by Jack Cornfield.  The author takes you through Buddhist style mindfulness meditation and it is very good.  Another very similar book that I have enjoyed is "Meditation for Christians: Entering the Mind of Christ" by James Finley. Both of these books present meditation in an easy to understand language. Both of these I lean on in my meditation practices.  The mystic in me has to mention "The Way of Saint Francis: Teachings and Practices for Daily Life" by Murray Bodo, this book is simply wonderful.

There are many meditation tools out there.  The one that I prefer to use is the Anglican Rosary.  I have a very dear friend who is a priest in the Church of England and he says that it is interesting that it is called the Anglican Rosary since they don't use it there.  Indeed the Anglican Rosary is an invention by an Episcopal priest in the 1980s. There are many sites that show you how to use the rosary like AnglicanRosary.net or KingOfPeace.org.

Many of the meditation tools I use can be found at the Order of Saint Francis website on their devotions page.

Those are the tools that I take into my hermitage.  I pray this will be a long, slow journey.

Faithfully.