I survived!

I survived my first quiet day. That's makes it sound like a horrible experience which it really wasn't. I have this nagging feeling that I didn't do the right thing.

It was 5 hours of silence and reflection. I had planned to go to an organisation that run quiet days or retreats but unfortunately the one I had planned fell through and then the other places were too busy or couldn't help me.

So I started in the chapel of my church. That was for the first 2 1/2 hours. After that I had to move as there were band practises. Luckily I knew this ahead of time and they didn't walk in and disturb me! - Actually now I think of it, I organised to book the chapel and neither of those groups did so they probably should have worked around me instead of me working about them. I'm too nice and I moved for them ;) So for the second part I went to Ruffey Lake Park.

The first 2 1/2 hours were really good. It went pretty quickly - I did have the nagging worry about the time and going before people arrived to disturb me which made it harder to concentrate. Despite that I was able to spend some time with God. I did a Lectio Devina exercise (I don't care if that's spelt wrong I'm too tired to go and look it up) which involves reading a bible passage and letting it ... speak to you I guess. You take recognise a part that "rings true" or speaks to you and just think on that for awhile. I can't explain it very well but my reflection was about calling on God's name or something similar and how I'm not really doing that if I'm not spending time with Him.

So from that I've made a renewed committement to regular ie. daily "God time". In my spiritual journal and other places I've recognised the importance of this again and again and yet I've let my personal time with God slip until it's not happening at all.

As I said, for the second part of the 'day' (ie. afternoon) I decided to go to Ruffey Lake Park. At Easter the Passion Play is held in the park. Different scenes of the life of Jesus are acted out in different parts of the park. The past three years I've been to at least one performance and I've found it a very moving event and very thought provoking. I've also found it good to revisit those sites when walking my dog! So I thought I'd intentionally visit the sites of the play and read the passion narrative for the second part of my quiet day.

A nice idea in theory but not so much in practise. At the first site (Baptism of Jesus) two dogs decided to run up and chase each other around me - rather exuberantly too. Not really conducive to reflection! The second site (Teachings of Jesus) was better but there were heaps of birds flying around from tree to tree. As stupid as it is I'm scared of birds so that was making me nervous and I decided to move on again.

There were people playing badminton in the middle of the Palm Sunday 'set' so I decided just to find a spot to sit and reflect. Well that was better for awhile but then it got cold and I've been sick so I was just thinking about not getting sick!

Basically while the idea of following the Passion Play was a good one, the practicality of it wasn't great. I thinking staying in one space which is 'comfortable' (ie. neither too hot nor too cold) is the best way for me to reflect.

In the past I have felt the sensation of time slipping away and not being aware of it but I unfortunately didn't get to that kind of reflection this time. I would like to try this again 'correcting' the things I've mentioned because I recognise that this time is so valuable.

So how have others found this kind of quite day?