The Journey - 01 - Being Calm
Channel: Jesuit Institute South Africa
Date: 2020-03-30

Welcome to The Journey!

In this series Fr Russell Pollitt SJ will offer reflections or invite us to do something practical so that we can live spiritually in this challenging time.  At other times he will grapple with difficult and timeless questions about faith.

Subscribe to our page and join us on The Journey as we journey together in solidarity in this time of lockdown.

---

Welcome to The Journey.

In these days of lockdown we are all on a journey, a journey of solidarity together. The Journey will offer reflections, ideas, and practical ways that we can live in this time of lockdown. And I’ll begin by looking at how we can calm ourselves and get some balance in these challenging times.

You know friends, we can’t change the situation that we find ourselves in, but we can ask ourselves how we can profit best from it.

Many people have been asking, and I myself have felt this in these days, how do I calm myself and enter into prayer when I’m feeling fearful and anxious and overwhelmed by all that is happening? And so, for today, I want to look at a simple way that we can calm ourselves.

And the first thing we need to do is find a space, or a place, where we can be still. Maybe your room or another place where you find silence. It might be difficult if you are living with a number of other people in this lockdown period, what you could do, is get up early before them, to find a place of still; or even better, invite those who are with to join you in this period of silence. Find a space and find a posture. Sit on a chair with your feet flat on the ground and your back straight. Or, if you prefer, sit on the floor. The most important thing is that your back is straight.

And then I invite you to simply close your eyes, and become aware of sounds that are far, and sounds that are nearer, maybe that even of your neighbours, perhaps you hear the sounds of birds, and just listen to those sounds… and as you listen, become aware of the silence around you.

And once you’ve done that for a few moments, then become aware of your breath. You’re breathing in, and your breathing out. Do not change the pattern of your breathing, but simply become aware of breathing in and breathing out. And as you breathe out perhaps you can imagine breathing out the anxiety and the fear and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and as you breathe in become aware of the peace that you desire and your well-being at this time. You may even want to pull your shoulders up close, and tense them, and then slowly release them, as a way of relaxing your body. Just stay with your breath, in and out, in and out…

Now, if you do this for a few moments every single day, two or three or four minutes maybe, once or twice a day, and you can even increase the time as you grow accustomed to this way of living, this way of calming yourself, you will notice that it’ll be much easier to enter into prayer. That somehow you will find a peace that you were not feeling before you tried this simple little practice.

And in doing so, we not only calm ourselves, but open ourselves to prayer, and to God. And so I invite you now to pray with me:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.