Note: As a personal, spiritual discipline, reviving my practice in the Lenten season of 2017, I revise the prayers I wrote then for each of the forty days of this Lent; each petition focusing on a theme, a concern weighing on my mind and heart or a care of my soul and spirit.
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On thinking too much (being a meditation on Ecclesiastes 1.2, 12-14 and 1 Kings 19.11-12)…
Sometimes (all the time?), Lord, I think too much about the world and about my self.
And sometimes I think that if I think long and hard enough, I will, I can resolve – or, at least (at last?), catch a glimpse of an answer to – the questions of life and the riddles of my self that roil my soul and keep me restless and awake at night.
Yet the more I think (Ha! My dear Lord, I see the irony of my thinking more about thinking too much!), I have come to this discernment for today: Too much thought without end is wearying; falling short of even Sisyphean success. For ne’er do I seem to get very far, oft unable to roll the stone of my wondering, my worrying beyond the bottom of the hill of my daily wrestling.
Today, if but for an instant, I pray that You quiet the noise of my inner inquisition that I, listening only for the “sound of sheer silence,” ever the pacific introit to Your coming, may know again the wisdom of trusting and resting in Your Love.
Amen.
Illustrations:
Sisyphus, Tiziano Vecelli (aka Titian) (1488-1576)
Elijah listening to the Voice of God, James Tissot (1836-1902)
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 