silence is the frost heave of the soul.

That's what Pastor Dan shared with me today.  He is the pastor of Montello Park CRC, where La Casa meets.  He took me out for lunch today so that we could get to know the person working in the office on the other side of the wall.  He also went to Calvin and spent a summer in Honduras and was also an FYFer its first year.  One thing we talked about is what Calvin does NOT teach students about vocation: we may be allowed to make a choice and BOTH options would be equally fulfilling and either one could/would be our vocation.  We talked about my love for planning and order.  But it was this statement that caught my heart.

At times in my life, I have been very good at being silent.  And I would almost always rather listen than speak when I'm with a friend or a group or in class.  But there are also times in my life when I keep myself very busy--too busy, even--and that does not allow times for silence.  At those times, that is okay with me!  I was convicted today, though, as I have been before, that those are the times that I should probably take time for silence.  It's in the silence that the boulders in my soul are lifted to the surface--joys, sorrows, memories, you name it.  Just like in a field where the frost brings the rocks to the surface, making the soil better to plant, the silence brings the rocks of my soul to the surface, making my heart a more fertile ground to be planted.

And so, I sit at the counter, coffee in hand, heart laid bare.  I sit and I am.  I'm not doing.  I'm just being.  Just for an hour or two.  And I haven't quite worked up the courage to be in the silence yet... I'm sitting in a coffee shop with chatter and jazzy piano music in the background.  But it's a step, you know?  It's intimidating now, but as Pastor Dan and I also talked about, spiritual disciplines also tend to have a liberating effect on a person--usually liberating us from ourselves.  It will come.

frost heave
noun Geology .

an uplift in soil caused by the freezing of internal moisture.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_heave