Multitasking

Do you ever just sit and do one thing?

It use to be that when I wanted to watch tv, I would sit on the couch and watch a show or two. Every now and then I would eat or drink something as I watched.

Now it seams that I can no longer just sit! Now I feel like I have to watch tv, save multiple shows for later, eat, drink, check my email, browse the internet, check my cell phone messages as well as talk on it, read a book or browse through a magazine.

Some people call it multitasking, society encourages it, and if your sitting down and only doing one thing, people call you lazy!

I can't escape from it! It follows me everywhere!

I just want to be able to sit in the midst of quiet, turn everything off, remove myself from the chaos that follows me.

I need to disappear with God! I need to really be alone with Him, to listen, to talk, to read and to pray.

A friend turned me on to the idea of "poustinia."

The concept of poustinia according to Catherine Doherty is a smallish house or cottage, furnished with cot, table and chair, located far from the distractions of the world. The only permitted reading is a Bible, and the only permitted food (supplied) is bread and hot water for tea or coffee. The pousitnikki is to immerse himself or herself in sheer solitude, not reading more than the Bible, not working, no communications, not even praying if the spirit does not persuade. Walks in the woods or puttering in the cottage garden are permitted for the visitor's weekend stay. Doherty even gives license to just sleep if that is all that the exhausted but honest wayfarer can accomplish. But solitude, sacrifice, silence, self-discipline -- all these tools are intended to open the person to finding God experientially. Then the poustinikki can return to the "marketplace" of the world carrying the desert within the self.

I am feeling drawn to this idea of "pustinia" and will be looking for an opportunity in the near future to withdraw and see where the Holy Spirit leads me. Plus my waist could probably use a few days with out food...