Shattered solitude and silence

I am laughing gently and ruefully to myself.

I have the unexpected and delightful luxury of a weekend completely to myself. It must be twenty years since I have had any space free of any other cares but myself. My oldest son is at University and my husband and youngest son have gone to Durban in South Africa to watch a Super 15 rugby game. A treat for the boy before he faces major back surgery next week, following a rugby accident that fractured vertebrae twenty months ago.

We live in a quiet neighbourhood and I have been anticipating the delight of silence and solitude for a couple of weeks. I did not anticipate that many of my friends and acquaintances would consider that spending a weekend alone abhorrent and in their kindness have invited me to all sorts of get togethers, parties and the like. I have had difficulty getting anyone to understand how I was looking forward to "my" weekend and finding a way to say no tactfully in the face of their insistent invitations.

I had planned some reading and reflection with my Spiritual Director. I planned time to sit in the sun and watch the fish in the pond, time to be still and quiet and peaceful. So I planned it. So I began to do it.

Until our young neighbours started a birthday party at lunch time, a party that features a new and very loud sound system. Hours later it is still going on and I have decided that I really don't care for Lady Gaga nor for rap ... my age shows! The party grows ever more rowdy and noisy and I can hear that they have begun to drink shooters so it should get even more noisy.

Jesuit spirituality aims to find God in everything.

And I am laughing gently because my carefully laid plans, and anticipation of the luxury of silence - no TV no radio have been shattered. Instead I wait now, wondering just how to pry my mind open enough to allow God to show himself to me in this noisy bedlam.