Silence is kept

Morning. 

I nurse my first cup of coffee for the day, blinking sleep from my eyes. 

I’ve recently started trying to pray through the Daily Prayer each morning.  I reach the opening prayer:

The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

Previously I’d been skipping over the “Silence is kept”, conscious of the limited time I have, and ploughing on to the next prayer so I can get through it all. 

But this day, I’ve managed to get up a bit earlier, so I linger in the silence.  I paraphrase the previous line to “I am here to pray with my heart and mind”.  Then I stop and listen.  I am aware of the sounds of the world around me – birds, traffic outside, children stirring in another room.  My mind is trying to think about the things I need to do today, but I make an effort to put that thought aside. I breathe.  Something deep inside me seems to be wakening just a little.  “I am here” becomes “Here I am”. 

As I read through the rest of the prayers, that something stays with me.  And when I finally get up, the empty space I’ve been feeling for the last 11 months now feels a little less empty.

2012 - The year of the rebuild

All around Christchurch at the moment there’s a lot of “deconstruction” going on.  The removal of damaged buildings and structures to clear the land for rebuilding the new.  It’s heart-breaking seeing buildings that have been part of my cityscape for decades being stripped out and torn down. 

From this…

 

 

 

…to this
Photo: http://www.stuff.co.nz

Photo supplied by Deb Donnell, author of Cafe Reflections on Christchurch City 1975-2011. Find out more at http://CafeReflectionsBooks.com/.

Photo: Christchurch City Libraries

I think that’s also a bit of a metaphor for how I’m feeling.  A part of my psyche has been damaged in some way, and has been “deconstructed” in a rather sudden, violent way on 22 February 2011. 

As I travel around my city I see too many empty spaces where there used to be something. Too many times I look at the gap and struggle to remember what used to be there. 

There’s also something inside me that feels like an empty gap, and I can’t remember what used to be there.  All I know is the hollow feeling that a part of me is missing.

http://www.gapfiller.org.nz/ has been working hard putting something creative into the empty spaces in the city, with ideas like:

Photo: http://www.gapfiller.org.nz/

Photo: http://www.gapfiller.org.nz/

And in Cashel Mall, where my world crashed down around me and changed my life, what looked like this:
Photo: Dean Norrie at www.starphotographers.net

Photo: Booksellers New Zealand

After a bit of this:
Photo: http://www.stuff.co.nz

now looks like this:

Photo: Mark Lincoln www.nzraw.co.nz

Photo: http://www.theoutsideoffice.co.nz/christchurch-nz-time-to-revisit/

Photo: Malcolm Locke

What was “dead” has now been resurrected into a new, vibrant life. 

So for myself, 2012 will be the year I rebuild emotionally, rebuilding Hope, Faith and Life into what will hopefully be a new, improved me.

(Edit 19/1/2012: Photo from Dean Norrie added)