Sally at Eternal Echoes offers this Friday Five:
OK I'll admit it, right now I am exhausted, there is so much going on and so much to do that I fell like I am running around in small circles, add to that the fact that there is so much that I'd like to do ....

What I need to do is give myself permission (make myself) to stop and to refocus, to breath the air and smell the roses to get perspective and to rest in God's presence, and sometimes that can be hard to achieve but I know that the harder it gets, the more essential it becomes. Somewhere deep inside I hear the Spirit whispering to my soul:

Live in me, make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself, but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined to me... (John 15: 4)


So I want to ask you

1. How do you intentionally make a vital daily connection with God? What roots you and gives you life?
I use the Book of Common Worship and pray the lectionary. It's been my practice for the past nine years. I find it fruitful. I also take a daily walk, not always at the same time or in the same place. I find this fruitful, too.

2. Do you have a favourite space/ place that you go to?
For sedentary praying, I can be found in my office. For the walking prayer, I'm all over the neighborhood.
3. Is there a particular passage, phrase or prayer that brings you immediately into God's presence?
Psalm 46:10.
4. Music- essential ingredient or distraction- discuss
Sometimes essential, if that makes sense. I often pray with music in the background, but sometimes appreciate silence.
5. Silence and solitude or engagement with like minded others?
Yes, and yes. I guess I'm an eclectic connector.
Bonus, a poem, piece of inspirational prose or music that speaks to you of that vital connection...
Wendell Berry's sabbath poems.