The Habit of Pause

“What is God doing in my life? In the mornings, I wake to find that he has traced the world in silver. Every blade of grass. Each pumpkin on the porch. In the afternoons, I find him washing these fields with the mellow sunlight of autumn. He has gilded every rail in the fence and the sheet metal roof of the old red barn. He has transformed familiar trees into something otherworldly.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

“Learning to pause is the first step in the practice of Radical Acceptance. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. . . . The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours or for seasons of our life. . . . We may pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath. We may pause by stepping out of daily life to go on a retreat or to spend time in nature or to take a sabbatical. . . . You might try it now: Stop reading and sit there, doing “no thing,” and simply notice what you are experiencing.”― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

Pause, pray, reflect, meditate, sit.
Whatever you want to call it.
The necessity to stop, to create space, to look at beauty, blessings, light.
Amidst struggle, worry, rush.
In the slowing.
In the witnessing.
In the quiet.
A soft clear reminder of what always has been true.
You are loved.
Love is the call on all our lives.
The power of the pause.

“You must try to pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime—perhaps not today, but sometime—you are able to hear God say to you, “I love you!” These words, addressed to you by God, are the most important words you will ever hear because, before you hear them, nothing is ever completely right with you, but after you hear them, something will be right in your life at a very deep level.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing