Thursday, April 22, 2010

Well, I am slowly easing my way back into work again.  It was a needed time off.  I'm also grateful I made the decision NOT to go to London, as much as I missed seeing the family over there, as the chances are I would not be returning for quite some time!  Instead, I experienced a time of much solitude and silence, rhythmic work and rest, and much restoration.

Here's a video link that was sent to me recently that is worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY


After you watch that one, please consider watching this one:


They are both thought provoking pieces.  After viewing them I encourage you to consider how to continue to offer the wonderful timelessness of the Gospel message to a world where nothing stays the same minute to minute and yet we are still creatures who need to be able to hear God's voice.  Please make comments--I'd love to hear from you.

1 comment:

Angie Hammond said...

Funny how people don't really think about the noise until it is not there anymore. I remember living in the Dallas area when 9-11 took place and all of the planes were grounded. I worked at one end of the DFW airport and lived at the end of the Love field airport and noise was constant. Then no planes and no noise for those days after 9-11. I heard birds, I'd never heard before and I actually saw birds I'd never seen before at work. I heard the small things at night that you never heard in the city. Very strange. Then the day came when planes flew again and you could no longer hear the birds or the small night noises.

Then years later, I moved away from the Dallas area to Waco where there are very few jets flying near my home and the first thing I noticed was the silence and the things I could hear that I never heard in Dallas. I heard birds, and crickets, and frogs and all sorts of small things at night. It was amazing. Then in the morning when I'd arrive at work early just before sunrise, I'd hear the birds waking up and the animals as they moved. Only the sounds of nature and the wind were heard most days. The babble of the creek just behind the school could be heard just after a rain.

I say all of this in response to your remarks. I realized how filled with noise my life was only when the noise was gone. Now that I've lived in Waco for a while, I've come to appreciate the lack of loud noises and I enjoy hearing the owl hooting in my back yard and the cardinals sing their song as they feed from my bird feeder. I actually enjoy the silence or the sounds of nature that I'm blessed with each morning as the sun comes up at work.

As for the video on the growing world and the changing world. I'm a teacher and I'm inspiring the minds of tomorrow to dream today of the things that I'll never see but that they'll be inventing and living.

And in the middle of all of this, I am still called to show them the beauty of God's world and through my actions share the message of how God is still at work in the ever changing world we live in.

And as an after thought on God being in the silence. I'd like to offer this thought about today's world. God is in the noise and is always with us. We just don't always have the right equipment to separate his voice from the rest of the voices.
That is when church and sharing with other christians coming into play.

They help us to find the one true voice that has always been there for us if we'd only listen.
After all Jesus said that his sheep knew his voice and I'm certain that in today's world that he'd say they could pick his voice out of the noise if they only listened.