Silence

I am struggling with my prayer life at the moment.  I have always felt that I can talk to God, I have been able to feel his love on the whole.  I have gone through times in my life when I don't feel him usually because I've stopped looking.  Even when I walk away, when my hated blinds me, I can still feel him, hand on my shoulder waiting patiently for me to return.

"The interior man is aware that times of silence are demanded by love of God.  As a rule he needs a certain solitude so that he may hear God 'speaking to his heart.'  It must be stressed that a silence which is a mere absence of noise and words, in which the soul cannot renew its vigor, would obviously lack any spiritual value.  It could even be harmful to fraternal charity, if at that moment it were essential to have contact with other.  On the contry, the search for intimacy with God involves the truly vital need of a silence embracing the whole being, both for those who must find God in the midst of noise and confusion and for contemplatives.  Faith, hope and a love for God which is open to the gifts of the Spirit, and also a brotherly love which is open to the mystery of others, carry with them an impereative need for silence."

Vatican II pg 701

I've been reading this over and over and over again lately.  I really don't understand it.  On the one hand I feel like it's telling me that the only way to be close to God is through silence and it's a must within the Catholic faith.  However, I also read it as saying that silence is different to each individual.  As individuals we have to discover our own silence, in what ever form that is, and allow ourselves to experience God through that.

With the silent prayer that we do in community, I have never felt so far away from God in my life. I used to have a great prayer life, I used to talk to him daily, Mass was a highlight of the week.  Now though there is nothing. No silence. No love. No light. No dark. Just nothing.

I wish someone could show me why silence is such a big freaking deal.  Why does it make you closer to God? All it's going for me, is making me not sleep, making me feel like a real freak, making me hate myself, making me jealous, making me frustrated.... why can't my personal prayer time be something that works for me so that I can have that relationship with God.

Prayer

Prayer is something that I've never overly struggled with. From a young age I've always prayed to God, I've always got answers.... even if they are not the answers I want or expect.  The best way I find to pray is by playing music, whilst I meditate on the day and thanking God for the amazing day and any awesome events.  In also ask God to guide me through times I struggle with.  As I'm meditating on these things lines or words from the songs I'm listening to will become dominate in my  mind.  This is God talking to me.  Sometimes I like the answers I get, sometimes I don't.  Always though I feel refreshed and enjoy the time I get to spend with God.

However since I started my new job (which is a catholic retreat centre) we have community prayer and I am not allowed to do this whilst in community prayer.  In stead I have to sit in complete silence, for most days 30 minutes but once a week it's an hour. 

Silence and I have never ever got on.  The more I'm in silence, the worse things get for me.  So when I sit through half hour of prayer it has a very negative side effect on me, apart from having more energy than I know what to do with, it also causes my brain to go on overdrive.  As a result I don't sleep well.  I usually sleep for about an hour or so and that's it.  So as you can imagine I get unbelievably tired.  At the weekend I do try and catch  up on sleep but I have so much to do that I really can't cope with sleeping for the 15 odd hours that I need each night to catch up.

My boss and his boss are always trying to tell me that silence is a good thing, that it does people good.  I said it has a detrimental effect on me, but they want me to keep going, so I do.  I went to see the doctor to try and see if I could get an official ADHD diagnosis that would mean I didn't have to sit in silence.  It will take a few weeks to get the referal, and maybe a few weeks after that.... which sucks.  So I continue to go to prayer.  I started off fidgeting chronically, after a while I stopped doing that, I started bashing my head against the wall, I didn't notice at first but other people did.

So last night I took the decision to go to bed at 4.30pm and miss prayer.  I made it clear why I was missing prayer and just went straight to bed.  I slept through until 7.30am.  I feel wonderful today.  Amazing in fact.  To day my boss' boss came up to me and said that for today I could miss silent prayer and we would talk about it on Monday.  Can't wait to see what will happen with that!!!!

I can't believe it's so hard to try and pray in a way that does not have a detrimental effect on me.  I can't believe what they want me to do, adn try to make out it's my fault.  They keep saying things like we are made exactly how we're meant to be and we shouldn't to change, but that's all they want me to do.  They say that we should pray as we can not as we can't and they expect me to do that every day and then some.... it's just ridiculous!  I don't know what they hell I'm suppose to do about all this all.