How can it be first week of November already? I barely caught up with October! I never did figure out my Halloween costume, I still can’t find my fall sweaters (let alone my winter boots!), and yet there is no escape: the Holiday Season has arrived. At least that is how it feels.

Christmas decorations fill the stores, toy catalogs stuff my mailbox, and the Starbucks holiday cup rolled right out on November 1st. Everywhere I turn there is a hustle and bustle that just keeps building up towards the December holidays.

It’s too much. It’s too soon. My soul balks at all of this rush and busyness.

I feel this way every November. As the darkness increases and the days get colder, all I want to do is settle down and be still. My spirit longs for quiet. But the world keeps throwing things at me every minute! So every November, as a matter of self-preservation, I intentionally set a technology Sabbath and unplug from all technology and social media for 24 hours every week. Instead of engaging in my usual media diet and technology habits, I unplug and nourish my spirit instead. I settle into the stillness. I relish the quiet and calm. Like the Earth going dormant and still, I focus inward on rest, healing and renewal.

I know it is difficult to slow down in today’s world, especially at this time of year, but just try it. Embrace the quiet. Unplug from technology and social media. Read a book. Talk to someone you love. Bake. Go for a walk in the woods. Drink a cup of tea. Plant tulip bulbs. Or just simply sit and enjoy the quiet. As Unitarian Universalist minister Jacob Trapp wrote,

“Let this house be quiet. Let our minds be quiet. Let the quietness of the hills, the quietness of deep waters, be also in us: So quiet that the noise of passing events and present anxieties, of random recollections and wandering thoughts, is stilled; So quiet that the… stillness is like music; So quiet that we feel the very being which is the life of us all; So quiet that we are renewed, we feel at one with all others, at home in a tabernacle of stillness; So quiet that we let the ripples of this pool of quietness and healing pass through us and out into the world.”

Let the quiet moments of November and deep stillness of late fall be a blessing that renews your spirit this year.

In Peace,
Rev. Rebecca Hinds