Let me say this up front…….I am no poet.
However, you can’t go wrong with haikou, a poem of only three structured lines, can you? This is the stuff of school classrooms. Five syllables – seven syllables – five syllables. That’s it. (Though I suspect it works better in Japanese from which it originated.)
I’m also enjoying a delightful blog post on ‘mindfulness’ written from a Protestant Christian perspective, in which haiku is recommended. And so I decided to give it a go.
Okay … the truth is that I’m procrastinating. I have a assignment due, which is partly on the practice of silence as a spiritual discipline. But first, a haiku. Drum roll, please……
The sound of silence,
Manic mind urging action,
God is God – not me.
Does silence have a sound? In the experience of the Biblical prophet Elijah, God was present in ‘a sound of sheer silence’ (1 Kings 19:12 NRSV). As I write these words, I hear birds, traffic and a snoring cat. I think ‘sheer silence’ could be a little unnerving, don’t you?
When I stop and try to focus on God, everything else suddenly seems so urgent. I’m inspired to clean cobwebs, jot items on my ‘to do’ list and save the world. But I persevere, drawing my attention back to God.
Although there is nothing spectacular about the experience … well, not my experiences, anyhow … a significant change of mindset comes from sitting silently in God’s presence. I recognise that I am only human. Oh yes, God gives me a role to play in his work in this freckle of time in which we live. But he is God – not me.
I am no poet. But haiku is a fun exercise that forces you to choose your words carefully. It helped crystallise my thoughts about silence as a spiritual discipline too.
Give it a go.
Footnote 1: https://soulsculpting.wordpress.com/resources/ by Cheri Howard, accessed 8 January 2018