Valuable Messages Come Not Only In The Bottles From The Sea

There is a hush in my Universe, this day, this week. A quiet retreat. It’s not every Friday that it happens. But it happens oddly enough on many Friday afternoons. Maybe it’s the same for you. Or could be.

Perhaps it’s because so many big things are in the middle of happening right now; the economy, politics, the Olympics, my excited return from BlogHer’12. Everything seems in the process of changing, not ending, not starting – the middle. I push myself to step outside it all, once in a while, to find a place of quiet, of safety. 

Reflection. That’s the thing. As the world turns ever faster in more unpredictable ways, I just need to shut it all out and find me. Me? “Who am I, in this kind of time?” I ask myself. “How am I doing?” Amidst the boil of the outside world, inside the commotion of family life, I need a harbor, a place of quiet. Someplace for it all to pass over.

So, I find myself on those Friday afternoons that quickly slide into Friday evenings, I am able to find myself. I can touch my core, my meaning to this life I have chosen. And in it I find joy. In the quiet, I know I am doing fine. 

I wasn’t always able to do that, to shut out the noise and the boisterous contradictions, and stress-inducing situations – I wasn’t always able to find the quiet, to find me. And those times now past, when I did find myself, I was far from satisfied. 

I have learned the necessity of finding that hush, of quieting myself, of shutting down my harsh inner-critic. Now that I have found it most Friday afternoons, I have discovered love oozing out of me other days of the week. I have felt self-acceptance where before I was harsh. I have found beauty where once I noticed little. 

Now Friday afternoons, before they slide into evenings, the hush comes unbidden. It just happens like the slow gathering of evening’s darkness. And like an old treasured friend I am surrounded by comfort.

Will you come with me there, on Friday afternoons, before the night takes hold – will you join me in the quiet and feel the gentle caress of reflection, to find the beauty of your soul radiating?