Listening to Your Life – Wisdom from Frederick Buechner

I came across this photo yesterday. It caught my imagination and my attention.  then this morning read these quotes from Frederick Buechner

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. (From his memoir Now and Then)

And from Telling Secrets

I have come to believe more and more that God also speaks through the fathomless quiet of the holy place within us all which is beyond the power of anything that happens to us to touch although many things that happen to us block our access to it, make us forget even that it exists. I believe that this quiet and holy place in us is God’s place and what it is what marks us as God’s. Even when we have no idea of seeking it, I think various things can make us fleetingly aware of its presence – a work of art, beauty, sometimes sorrow or joy, sometimes just the quality of a moment that apparently has nothing special about it at all like the sound of water over stones in a stream or sitting alone with your feet up at the end of a hard day.” 

As I reflect on these thoughts this morning I know God is saying to me –

Slow down. Savour each moment. Stop and notice my presence within it. See me in the smile of a child, taste me in your first sip of morning tea, hear me in the bees buzzing in the garden, feel me in the soft fur of your dog, smell me fragrance of lilacs.  Delight in who I am, not just in the big and seemingly important parts of your day but in the ordinary, easily discarded moments of encounter.

My contemplation led to the writing of this prayer

How does God want you to listen today? What are the moments, the encounters, the sights and sounds that usually pass you by without acknowledgement that God wants you to pay attention to?