How Silently

I don’t know how you prepare for Christmas, maybe making lists of things to buy for presents and some festive food perhaps. Personally, I have just returned from an 8 day silent retreat near Liverpool which was my way of preparing for the festive fun.

I try to have a retreat each year, I really belief it's an important thing to do in all of our spiritual lives – not just as a preparation for Christmas, but just for living the Christian life. Like those first disciples the key thing is to spend time alone with Jesus – to listen to him, and learn from him.

For thousands of years Christian saints and teachers have taught the importance of just being silent in Jesus’ presence. Silence is a difficult thing to achieve, because our daily lives are so full of noise all the time. TVs, iPods and radios are often on at home, and so many people out on the noisy streets have things plugged into their ears. Yet this noise also drowns out the voice of God, and our spiritual lives are the poorer for it.

It took a little while to get used to the quiet, as the people on the TV series ‘The Big Silence’ found out. But if you keep at it, it becomes easier. As I’ve sat silently, focusing my thoughts on God, and trying to quieten my restless mind, I have been surprised and touched by the things God has brought to mind.

Towards the end of my retreat I reflected on how Jesus came into the world, what we call the ‘Incarnation’. It's amazing to think that this was the beginning of God’s rescue mission planned since the creation of the world. That he chose to come to earth with the co-operation of a young girl about to be married, and was born into poverty and danger.

As we go about the next few weeks, I hope we can make a little space in our noisy lives for quiet, and take time out to reflect on the amazing story unfolding before us. As the Christmas Carol goes, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given; so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven”. May we be still enough to receive these blessings – because “Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in” – which is the real point of Christmas.