be still and know...

so i did this taize thing. i experienced it - and it was good. it took us 4 hours to get to toronto because the weather was so shitty - but we made it.
i'm not sure that i got out of the weekend what i was "supposed to" but it was still really good...
friday night i enjoyed the chance to just sit and be... it was a chance to be silent and to sing a little bit - or not sing and just sit and listen and pray without a huge focus on anything... i don't think i've just sat in a long time. there was a real sense of God just whispering - be still and know... saturday was more of the same- but i was slowly feeling the need for more stimulation - but still very interesting discussions were happening and it was an interesting dynamic of people that attended the conference - but there were no real moments of revelation or anything. sunday we attended a great little catholic church right next door to the place we were living - it was awesome... we sat next to a nun that had attended the whole taize weekend with us (very cool lady) and the sermon was done by another visiting nun - another very cool lady... the service was also the re-dedication of the "religious" lives to God - so the nuns and the monks etc. re-did their vows... pretty cool. we then returned to the conference for a final talk with brother emile - very interesting.
highlights of the weekend:
- just sitting on friday night
- the AMAZING place we stayed at.... neil, katie and i got to stay at the u of t catholic chaplancy centre --- it's this huge victorian mansion type thing... 7 students live/work there with father pat - the priest of the neighbouring parish... you walked into this place and got lost... there was hallway after hallway - neil got a bedroom and katie and i slept on couches in the living room... they were really hospitable and friday night in particular we stayed up for quite a while talking to one of the guys in the house... saturday night we fell asleep listening to the priests/nuns having a hymn sing at their party till 2 am... father pat called them the jesuits that can't sing or something... but it was fun
- the churches we did workshops in... we were mainly in st. paul's cathedral - but also visited metropolitan united and st. james anglican - all of which are huge and have great accoustics...
- going out with ryan and jasmine- it was nice to be able to catch up - and also take a break from the silence :-)
- the service this morning... great to break some of those preconceived notions...
overall the weekend was a great tool at opening up my mind towards some things that are different and that i don't necessarily consider normal practice...