Monday 23rd November - Silence?

 That's two days in a row I haven't chalked a word outside the house.

Why?

I don't know - maybe it was too cold, maybe I couldn't think of one, maybe I wasn't in the mood?

I'm reading a book called 'Amazing Grace' by Kathleen Norris, one very short chapter at a time because I don't want to spoil it by reading too fast. She takes words from her childhood experience of church and unpacks them; so far I have read her chapters on eschatology, the antichrist, and, this morning, silence;

Here, she is describing how, when teaching creative writing, she used to let the children make a noise at their desks until she held up her hand, and then they had to be silent, and listen to the silence; 

The nugget is right at the end of this chapter...

'and in a tiny town in North Dakota a little girl offered a gem of spiritual wisdom....' 

I often sign in for an online journaling workshop on Monday mornings. There tend to be a rather long time of chit-chat and reading out people's comments and saying hello and so on before we get down to the writing bit. Today the starting point was silence... synchronicity?

I usually find it difficult to stop and be still, but, for once, today was the day, almost to the point of wanting to sit and listen to the silence more than I wanted to journal about it. A new experience for me.