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We live in a world now which requires action; much action. We seem to want our leaders to appear decisive, to be on top of things all the time, to be well-informed, articulate and responsive. Our different communication technologies seem to make this all the more insistent and can extend the pressure to us mere mortals; we can tweet on Twitter telling those who’ve signed up to follow us (yes, that is the terminology); we can update our profiles on Facebook or Friends Reunited; we can film our lives and put the results out on YouTube for almost all the world to see and comment on; the experience of Britain’s Got Talent participant Susan Boyle is a case in point.

I’ve been reading a book entitled “Hit the ground kneeling”; it’s a response to all those job advertisements that say they want the successful candidate to hit the ground running. The author comments “when someone hits the ground running, there is all the superficial attraction of movement and progress but there is no guarantee that they are going in the right direction”. Daring to stop, daring even for a short time to do nothing is the antithesis of what our target-driven culture demands yet we need time and space for considered reflection before deciding on a course of action.

The book reminds us of the need we all have to listen and to pray; to listen as well as to speak, to listen to ourselves, to listen to God, to listen to those who push us out beyond our comfort zone, to listen to our opponents as well as to our friends. Then, in silence, we can still the cacophony in our heads, so that whatever the situation in which we find ourselves, the words we eventually speak are ones that really matter and the direction in which we go is God-given.

Lyn

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