Ok, so the last two weeks I have been out of touch with my beloved internet, so in celebration of our reunion, I am slowly sharing thoughts I've had stored up over the last few days. Here's the first of many to come...

One of my favorite quotes from this past year in Sweden was made by a classmate of mine: "How do we bring love into the boardroom?"

So often, terms like love, peace and beauty are kept distant from the business world,  a place where efficiency and success are declared trump over most other things. But is what the world defines as successful in fact the direction we really want to be moving?

This week, I have been living at Taize, France and absorbing myself in God's word and in prayerful conversation with him everyday. Taize is truly an incredible place. Every day, the entire community (around 3,000 people) comes together three times for group prayer. I have spent around 4-5 hours in prayer every day, most of which is either in silence or through the simple repetition of a single phrase, of which most is in another language. There is no lead pastor and no sermon. There are no seats to sit on, just the floor to kneel on. It is so simplistic, and so beautiful.

I've had a lot of time to reflect and pray during these few days, and many of the following posts will have thoughts developed from this time. But the first thing that struck me was the power of simplicity.

I often find myself in tune with the complicated and busyness of life. I like constant change (just ask anyone who has lived with me and noticed how many times my bed moves to a new position). I enjoy times of complexity and hecticness. Maybe it's my personality, maybe it's the culture that I grew up in.

But during my time here at Taize, I have found myself at a strange peace through simplicity and silence. Silence is something hard for me to deal with, I can't think of many times where music isn't being played from my computer. Even just this instance I had to hit the pause button on the computer, and suddenly I can hear the birds singing and crickets chirping in the tall grass beside me.

During the first night of prayer, these were the thoughts that first came to mind:

"I can feel when my heart beats in rhythm with God's. The chatter in the air around me turns to silence, and a calm pulse moves up and down my bones, like a gentle breeze sweeping through a wheat field. Closer than ever, I can see and feel love. God appears in a variety of ways, and I pray that I begin to hear God in the silence more clearly. My time with God is often supported by music or conversations with friends, but I am longing to know the God of silence more intimately. This pen, and the keys of my computer, have been a critical means for me to grow as a person and transcribe the thoughts in my head, but it's time to really dive into silent prayer, just Christ and I. It's too easy nowadays to push that time off, and as I sit here, those are the words I hear Christ telling me - that's what sends the pulse through my bones."

The simplicity of silence, repetition and community have really stood out to me recently, and now I find myself asking the question: "How do we bring simplicity into the boardroom?"

Taize was designed to be "a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the centre of everything" (Brother Roger, founder) and as a result, has flourished and been a light to so many around the world. Where are we welcoming simplicity and silence into our lives? What clutter needs to be cleaned out? And how, if at all, does simplicity play a role in the work that we do?