Breathing in deeply.

Open my lips, O LORD, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. Psalm 51:16

Open my eyes that I may see. Psalm 119:18

I will thank you, O LORD my God, with all my heart. Psalm 18:32

Grant me understanding, that I may live. Psalm 119:144

So yesterday, Jenny and I met at Beyond Bread and together, yet quietly in our own thoughts, we plotted the next few months. Plotted as in deliberately put points down, in a pattern. Because such is the nature of life that it can be swept away with unintentional clutter, leaving only a few stray dust balls.

And one thing we did is sign up for an Intensive Contemplative Retreat Day out at a desert monastery. Albeit intensive contemplation seems a bit of an oxymoron. Yet, as the Friar explains, “Contemplation is the summation of the Christian life. It is the realization and fulfillment, moment by moment, of the primal Christian injunction: Love your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Rightly cautioned, intense.

And Thursdays are going to be my mini-contemplative days, the mornings set aside to listen.

Open my lips. Speak LORD, Your servant is listening.

Open my eyes. That I might behold Your beauty.

Open my heart. That I might receive Your love.

Open my understanding. That I might know Truth.

Selah.