Simplicity, Silence, Sabbath

My last post about the Republican candidates and Jesus caused enough stir that I decided to take a break.  Now I come back with something a little more postive and perhaps even...god forbid...enlightening and helpful.

Recently I have done a series of talks predominantly at churches here in the DC area called Simplicity, Silence and Sabbath.  These talks have generated some interest and it occurred to me that it might be fun to take the content of these talks and turn them into entries on the blog and eventually perhaps turn them into another book, or ebook which I understand is becoming all the rage.

So for the next god knows how many weeks and months, I'm going to begin posting my SiSiSa (as I call it) content for the millions of readers of this blog. My expectation is that after reading these entries and actually answering the questions, we will change the world.

SiSiSa is a very personal program that provides opportunity for people to take a look at these three essential ingredients of both the spiritual life and the happy life and determine just where they are personally (yes I said personal twice; no kumbaya here) on the "happiness because I have simplified my life, found time for silence and meditation/prayer and understand every minute is precious" scale...

I summarize SiSiSa as follows: 

The great spiritual traditions provide us with guidance along the ‘way’ to make progress, hopefully, toward happiness and peace.  Each tradition is different and each has a unique quality to it that separates it from the others.   Three aspects of these traditions, however, in one form or another, are common to all:  the call to a simple and meaningful life, a recommendation that silence through prayer and/or meditation be used to connect us to something more than our material lives, and the sanctifying of time so that we are encouraged to create periods for non-work or limited activity and centering on the sacred in the world.  

SiSiSa is a simple workshop and personal program that helps us take a look at these three common themes in the world’s faith traditions, Simplicity, Silence and Sabbath and how we might take practical steps toward achieving a balanced approach to all three.

In this very interactive program you will be challenged to consider how simplifying your life takes intention, finding times for silence every day can help center your life and just what Sabbath is, and how possible it is for you to become a Sabbath person every day not just on holy days.

This program is very hands on and personal and you will emerge from it with your own personal workbook in which you have recorded your thoughts about how to simplify, be silent and find times for rest and Sabbath.  This workshop is not a group program.  This is a “personal-you” program that hopefully will challenge you to take a hard look at how you live now….and how you might want to live in the future.

SIMPLICITY –the art of balance

If we are to find peace we must directly confront certain aspects of our life and work to simplify them. Truth is there is no getting around our need to understand what causes imbalance in our life and what we might do to address that imbalance.

If we are honest we acknowledge that seldom is our life fully in balance.  So many pressures, so much stress leads us to bounce from place to place, issue to issue in an effort to just stay above water.  It is hard enough to just pay the bills, find time for a casual dinner out with friends and keep up with our family obligations.  The idea we might be fully in balance so none of these things cause more stress is hard to fathom.

But it can be done.  What it requires is for us to consider how we approach life, what our attitude is toward life and just how we deal with some basic practical aspects of our life that unfortunately have the ability to make us happy or make us very sad.

By asking ourselves direct questions about five attitudes, five behaviors and five practical aspects of our life we can begin the long journey toward balance, simplicity and happiness.

SILENCE –the art of being still

The world requires us to be noisy and busy.  And every day the world adds new ways for us to add to the frenzy.  To find a level of peace we must be intentional about where we can find and create silence, and what we do with the silence once we get there.   In some cases the places for this activity already exist.  Perhaps we need to create some.  We might also already meditate or pray.  But our prayer and meditation just might be more busy-ness.  Is our prayer just another activity?  In this part of SiSiSa we get serious about how to develop a pattern or discipline of prayer and silence and we explore prayer disciplines that can enhance our spiritual life.

SABBATH-the art of sanctifying time

So much of our life is forced upon us including where we are to be and what we are to do.  Our jobs, our families, our leisure pursuits even, all take time from us and require us to do something.  Sabbath Keeping is an ancient and beautiful way to intentionally set aside time for silence and develop an attitude of gratitude and wonder.  Sabbath is about being mindful of the presence of the divine  (however we define it) in the everyday.   Sabbath Keeping is about sanctifying time…

But first in this part of SiSiSa we must understand just what Sabbath is.  We will look at the traditional understanding of a Sabbath day during the week and we will explore how some cultures successfully see Sabbath in all things.  And more importantly we will take a look at our lives in an effort to clearly identify ways to make Sabbath Keeping a daily activity, not just once a week.

Finally we will spend time on the mundane art of managing the clock.  We will dive into our day to try to understand how we might manage our time better.  Are there tools or techniques we can explore that will automatically reduce the amount of time we spend responding to others, reaching out to others and being caught up in the ‘immediate response’ world around us?  How might we actually manage our calendar to give us opportunity for rest and silence?

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So we will take a look at Simplicity, Silence and Sabbath and ask you some very personal-'ain't nobody else's business'-- questions in the process--that will help you evaluate just what needs to be done to live a simple, happy life.

Each week I will take on one or more of the topics (usually one because you all know how lazy I am) and by the end of the program (maybe in 2015) we will, together, have created Kurt's next book...yup, usin' you.

Look for our thoughts on The Five Attitudes needed for the simple life in our next blog entry.

Intention
Mindfulness
Non attachment
Flexibility
Self-forgiveness

Then we'll deal with The Five Behaviors needed for the simple life:

Authenticity
Forgiveness
Gratitude
Passion
Service

Followed by The Five Practical Aspects of life required to simplify:

Money
Work
Health
Relationships
Spirituality

Intrigued aren't you?  Check back soon for the first installment of Simplicy, Silence, Sabbath.