“Two old acquaintances, who hadn’t see each other for years, were walking down the street together, renewing old times. ‘Just a minute,’ said one, ‘I think I hear something,’ and turning a loose paving stone over liberated a cricket which was chirping merrily away. ‘Why, that’s astounding. Of all the people on the street at this hour, hurrying from work, you alone hear the cricket above all the traffic noises.’
‘My friend,’ said the first. ‘I learned a long time ago that people hear in life only what they want to hear. Now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased in the past few moments, but watch.’ And as he finished speaking he let a silver half dollar fall from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.’
• Do you think people today, who are plugged into digital devices, would hear the coin drop?
• Are there listening opportunities we miss today because of distractions, disconnection, and discontent?
Closing Prayers:
“God of the seasons, God of the years, God of the eons, Alpha and Omega, before us and after us. You promise and we wait: we wait with eager longing, we wait amid doubt and anxiety, we wait with patience thin and then doubt, and then we take life into our own hands. We wait because you are the one and the only one. We wait for your peace and your mercy, for your justice and your reign.
Give us your spirit that we may wait obediently and with discernment, caringly and without passivity, trustingly and without cynicism, honestly and without utopianism; Grant that our wait may be appropriate to your coming, soon and very soon, soon and not late, late but not too late. We wait while the world groans in eager longing.”
Taken from: Prayers for a Privileged People, Walter Bruggemann
“May there always be a little light in our darkness. May there always be a little faith in our doubt. May there always be a little joy in our sorrow. May there always be a little life in our dying. May there always be a little hope in our despair. May there always be a little courage in our fear. May there always be a little slow in our hurry.” (~ From Song of the Seed by Macrina Wiederkehr)
“We who have lost our sense and our senses - - our touch, our smell, our vision of who we are; We who frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our earth and injuring ourselves; We call a halt. We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the earth to rest.
We need to reflect and to rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion. We declare a Sabbath, a pace of Quiet; for simply being and letting be; for recovering the great, forgotten truths; for learning how to live again.” (~ Hildegard of Bingen)
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