Plan BE
Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)
Be unmoveable (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Be of one mind (Romans 12:16)
Be renewed in spirit (Ephesians 4:23)
“You’re not you when you’re hungry.” ~ Snickers
This weekend I am giving a talk at our parish during a Ladies Tea: The Spirituality of Journaling. The Holy Spirit inspired this idea in a moment when I was on the cusp of politely declining helping with the tea. I had just finished the Blessed is She retreat, and looking ahead I felt things piling up. God has a great sense of humor; no sooner had I told my husband, Jeff, that I would decline, and Holy Spirit swooped in and laid out this talk and showed me His heart in why it was so important. Prayer Journaling as many of you know is near and dear to my heart, it is a core tenet of my relationship with God; it is a treasured gift. Two years ago God placed a dream upon my heart, another gift. God planted the seed of silence, “Be still.” That dream was planted during a two week period that I was at the cottage, for the most part, alone. I had this deep desire to be able to spend one whole month at the cottage in the peace of nature, the peace of quiet, the peace of isolation, away from the day to day demands of my life. I dreamed of time to ponder, time to write, time to be. This past Christmas I worked up the courage to ask my Dad if I could have the cottage for the month of June and he graciously agreed. Back to prayer journaling. It has been weeks, literally weeks, since I have written anything in my prayer journal that has given me a, “Then sings my soul…” moment. The reason for this is that I have been living Plan A. Plan A is what I would like to call a person’s default life mode. For the past several years my Plan A is one of busyness. My “yeses” to others and to ministry outnumber the hours of sane productivity that I have to give. The fruit of this (or lack thereof) has shown in my journaling and in some of the relationships of my life. This past weekend I watched my son (our youngest) graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As the various speakers shared their ‘wisdom’, I jotted some great lines down in the notes section of my phone. The title for this reflection is one such line. Plan BE: not as a backup plan for the failed Plan A, but to live authentically who you are. This inspired me to search for biblical moments where we are commanded to “BE.” The four I share above speak to my heart from our Lord to my current Plan A. You see, I have been talking myself out of my month long escape dream. There is still so much to do, it would be easier to just stay home and go on weekends, what about… In all of these inner debates I am anything but of “one mind.”And my tendency to compromise Plan Be will definitely not imitate being “immovable.” I am reminded today that I have neglected “being still.” All of these things combined mean that I am not allowing myself to “be renewed in the spirit.” This has indeed made me hangry in a sense and less than who I want to be and a Snickers bar won’t fix this state of spiritual hunger (I wish). As Pentecost approaches I renew my commitment to Plan BE. I embrace the dream that God planted, knowing that at this moment in time, His stillness was the Divine medicine I would need. It is so easy to fill our hours, days, and months with busyness. Even busyness of the best sort, that in giving of our time, talent, and treasure to others, must be punctuated with Plan BE: Be still, Be unmovable, Be of one mind, Be renewed in Spirit.
