When I first began to think about the word Q very few things came to my mind. However, one of my readers suggested quiet. Ironically, I am sitting here unable to speak as my wife and I are both healing our way through viral laryngitis, which can take 1-3 weeks to run its course. The second thought that crossed my mind was a line from a poem I recently was blessed to hear. In this poem, she wrote about the “symphony of silence” which she heard while sitting in the garden. This made such perfect sense to me as so often some of my most powerful moments of enlightenment have come during those moments of silence, those quiet times where I am so in tune with the Spirit. In the midst of the quiet, we can hear the symphonic wisdom of our Spirit guides, the Infinite, and the cloud of witnesses surrounding us.
In a world filled with noise from the media, technology, and life, taking the time to quiet one’s mind requires intentionality. It requires us to make taking the time to quiet our consciousness so that we can be open to hearing the words of wisdom and messages of enlightenment, which surround us. Whether it is through some form of meditation, reflective prayer, or spiritual journaling, when we are intentional about quieting our minds, it opens the portals through which the Infinite can communicate.
It is in one’s quiet time that we can also experience moments of cleansing. So often, we medicate our lives by keeping busy whether it is working, eating, drinking, using some sort of substance, having sex, gambling, or some other diversionary activity. When we put down our “drugs of choice,” we create quiet time in which we have been attempting to numb out can rise and be released. We become intentional about dealing with those things, which have been sitting in our minds and bodies like an infected splinter waiting to be removed. We become intentional about paying attention to the voices within which are saying we need some healing; it’s pay attention time.
Quiet time can also be a time for relationship. So often, our lives are filled with a never-ending list of tasks to be accomplished. Taking quiet time with those we live is an intentional act, which says my relationship with you is more important then the things I have to work on. It is about remembering, as counter cultural as it may be, that at the end of the day what matters most is our relationships with self, God, and others. When we remember to take quiet time to focus on our relationships, we are being intentional about developing our relationships in life.
Quiet time, is not a punishment for doing something wrong, rather it is a space of healing, enlightenment, and relationship building. Perhaps we should all begin the habit of putting ourselves in quiet time each day.