The snow is falling silently outside the window. Covering the trees, giving the world a carpet of silence. I sit with the Bible in my lap, but I am not reading. God is speaking to me through the silence, the slow falling snow. It is dark outside, but the white snow gives a soft light.
We had a rich, colourful vegetable soup for dinner, Ash Wednesday dinner. Lent is often associated with vegetarian food. I am not saying totally goodbye to meat for the 40 days of Lent, but my cooking changes. Less meat, alot more vegetables. Cooking and praying go perfectly well together. I cut the carrots and give God praise for his creation, I fry the onion while I ask His guidance, I stir the soup while God softly speaks to me.
Silence isn't always absence of noise. Noise means life and God has created us for living, for being. Some days I find silence while walking home from work, with cars, bikes and pedestrians all around, other days I seek silence in nature where birds sing praise. I can despaire because of noise and interruptions or I can let life liveand find silence there and then.
My Lent this year will be a period for silence, in the middle of my everyday life. Silence as a way of opening my mind, my heart, my senses and let God work through me. Let God's work make me being the person, the woman, the wife, the colleague, the kin, the neighbour, the stranger He meant me to be.
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Information for Norwegian readers:
More Lent reflections at fasteblogg.no
Link to "40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse"
.....and English speaking readers can flip through the book here. (and enjoy the photos)
Phots: The Round Pond, Kensington Gardens, London
