Quaker's Meeting

While most of the snow either isn't here yet or is heading north of us, we got hit with some very, very high winds. I actually heard the house make some noises that I'm not sure that any structure should ever make. Nonetheless, me and the boy had much fun on our Daddy and Boy Friday. Friday's are my day off and the best time for me to bond with kiddo. As we were reading books before nap time, the wind whistled through the teenie tiny cracks of the window in his room. Didn't seem to bother him much...he went straight to sleep.

While on the phone, I hear a minor explosive boom outside. Sounded kinda like a transformer. Not Optimus Prime...the kind on the poles outside. We instantly lost power. Thus losing my connections with the outside world. Of course, I still had my trusty Razr, but A. and have been treading a little to close to major minute overages, so that was no use. Besides, A. was cleaning for the day, so it was just me. No power, no nothing. My feeble home computer (unlike the Mac on the way for my job...woo frickin hoo) is about 5 1/2 years old now so any thought of the elderly battery inside lasting for more than 12 minutes was a wasted one. No power, no nothing.

But wait...there was hope. My new SanDisk Sansa m240 had arrived in the mail a day previous. I had had some time to put some music on it (Starfield-Everything's Beautiful...great album), so I had some back up. Cabin fever had struck. What do I do? Eat! Yeah, that's it. Pretzels and pistachios. Snacks though, not meant for the long haul. So I poured a bowl of raisin bran, but the fever had set in and I paced around the house with cereal in hand...I'm not sure if I sat at all for a good hour. I just paced.

I FELT like I should've taken the time to decompress. Obviously, I was wound tighter than all get out. It felt like I was being asked to. I remember the thoughts in my mind. Ryan, dude, this would be a good time to sit and chat with God. I didn't. I couldn't quiet myself enough to do it. So, I bided my time. I passively listened to music...dozed off hoping that I wouldn't miss the power company's visit. Soon it was 5pm. Wife home. Power, nope. Light...losing it. Boy, awake. So, we packed up and headed to the in-laws. A truly life giving place, honestly.

Their plans? Go to a book sale at their church. Hmmm, books. That idea sucked earlier in the day, but now...not so bad. So I went. Bought 5. The one the screamed at my soul? Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality I couldn't get that one back to read fast enough. It wasn't until later that I caught the irony of my crazy quiet and the strong feeling to read about Quaker spirituality--a spiritual perspective strongly rooted in active silence; clearly, God was going to get me one way or another on this one.

So many of the words that I've read over the past 20 hours have resonated with my soul. An excerpt:

"Spiriual silence...is a scalpel. It slices our souls open. It cuts through the layers of our fears and insecurities and our reliance on others instead of God...Just as surgery can be scary, so can silence. Especially at first. Silence leads us to self-discovery of any sin hidden deep within us. I'm not talking about big sins. I'm talking about the little sins that hold us back from being the people that, deep in our souls, we know God wants us to be.

I just wasn't prepped for surgery...yet...

...but I'm closer...