There are times on the spiritual journey that I feel a kind of hunger that I tend to (at first) interpret as a need for more input. I then find myself trying to read more, acquire more information, listen to more podcasts, feeling that there is some tidbit I need to find to open some door or window. However, when I try to do any or all of the above it all seems to fly away like two magnets with the same poles trying to come together.

It is at those moments I finally realize that what I need is not more flow of information but rather quite the opposite. I need to shut off the information faucet and sit with what is already there, substituting silence for intake. I need to process, to steep, to just be with what is already there.

You would think, after going through this process repeatedly, I would figure it out sooner than I do – but you would be wrong. Perhaps that is my growing edge, my thorn in the flesh, my reminder to slow down. Whatever it is, I believe the important thing is that I recognize that it is, and sit with that, too.