I was talking once to an old man who'd worked in the bush in Western Australia.
He and his brother cleared a fair bit of country with their axes.
He often used to sit down at night sitting on a log, sitting around a farm.
I remember talking to him in his old age, and we were talking about the world.
And he said, you know, I think the thing that's wrong with us, that we don't give enough time to ponder.
I think I know what he was saying.
We don't sit down enough and reflect and think.
We tend to be rush about people.
We feel we're pushed in this rush.
We've got to get from A to B, and there's another thing to do.
Yet if we don't give time to sit and reflect and listen,
it's very difficult for God to speak to us.
The things we've been thinking about this week with those key letter of S at the beginning of them,
which speak to us of the wonder of nature and so on.
Unless we sit down and think about it.
Very difficult for that quietness and peace of soul to come,
so that God really can communicate with us and form and fashion his life in us.
And if we're to share things and gain things from others,
we have to sit down and listen, or sit and read.
A wonderful phrase from the Psalms, be still and know that I'm God.
I suppose the very act of sitting is a reminder of this reflection and meditation,
which is a vital part of our lives.
The Christian tradition has been one which greatly exalts the quietness
and the light of stillness in prayer.
Sometimes can't be seen very clearly in us,
because we're either doing people or we're watching people, perhaps as we are at this moment.
That's why in speaking, I'm also suggesting that we sit and know stillness.
We may let God give us that peace, which is past understanding and which is his gift.
And I hope that you can have that stillness and peace,
and that you will gain from sharing with others and thinking of the deep things of life,
and find a deep joy in that too.