In the eye of the storm.....

The sound of the ticking clock and some soft background noise... is all I hear as I sit in my room alone. It's a nice change. Just this morning the neighbours were stomping around and causing a ruckus. Ahhh... blessed peace.

I'm experimenting and exploring with silence and aloneness.
It is entirely too ironic that often the only person who can accept us as ourselves (aside from God) is ourselves! And yet, when we are alone with ourselves, we get so scared of the emptiness, the quiet, the apparent aloneness.

I bought a book yesterday called Celebrating Time Alone.
While I doubt I'm really a hermit at heart, there are many truths I've come across in just the first few pages that I've read.

"Once you accept your aloneness,
once you face it and quit being scared,
it becomes like a wonderful secret you learn.
Then you know it can't hurt you.
Then it becomes precious."

I don't see this book as a "self-help book"... rather, it address something that we don't think about much cuz we're too busy tuning out the silence with music/tv/computer games... etc.
It is a book that brings something into perspective and awareness that if oft neglected - how to embrace being alone, and not to depend on other people for your sense of self-worth.

So many times, as life would have it, we lose our sense of who we are because we are too busy seeing ourselves through other people's eyes. We don't know who we are, are afraid to find out, and think it's better if we avoid being alone... avoid loneliness. Our world, when built around other people, can too easily come crashing down into the dust.

But the truth is - it takes a stronger person to learn to be at peace with the silence.
To know who you are... and then to build relationships based on this knowledge.
Not vice versa.

No wonder even Jesus said "Be still and know that I am God."