{this nest}: God

When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at "the house of the dying" in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, "And what can I do for you?" Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.

"What do you want me to pray for?" she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States.

"Pray that I have clarity."

She said firmly, "No, I will not do that." When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of." When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

— Brennan Manning, "Ruthless Trust", pg. 5

i spend a possibly wasteful amount of time staring at the trees and sky. wondering about everything.

(wonder was my word for this year, but i didn't see it working in this capacity.)

except for grace.
love. joy.
redemption. contentedness.
salvation. hope.
i'm not wondering about these things.

I guess I should say...
I'm not making decisions about the next few weeks of change, but rather I'm trying to just focus on today.

Two weeks. Nearly two weeks now of coughing and sneezing, sniveling and hacking, heads aching and bodies restless.

But now, now we're on the up. News flash: antibiotics work.

We started today with dancing and laughing, onto chocolate milk and coffee. I hear a rumor that the temps will rise to the 70s today. After the rain. After the earth gets muddy and thundered, the sun will rise and shine.

And I know I haven't written on this here blog in almost two weeks.

Maybe it's that we've been sick.
Or the arrival of spring.
The dirt roads and starry skies that are calling.
The wild rush of the creek and the birds who awaken us with song.

but I feel drawn to silence.

Something about this quote from Thoreau's "Walden" keeps jumping out at me:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

And then this morning, my sister sent me this blog from a Study in Brown (a good read) and she included a poem from Wendell Berry. These few lines jumped out at me:

selections from How to Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

.....

ii.

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

There are only sacred places

And desecrated places.

iii.

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

.....

There's incredible beauty in breathing
unconditional grace
unmerited favor
with unconditional breath.

The stars at night are so bright, and they feel really close.
The second thing I want to do is sit and write about them. The first thing I want to do is stare at them.

Crane my neck as far back as it will go and let my eyes wander until I'm dizzy. If the world ends by meteor shower, I'd like to climb one of these pines and sit at the top to watch the show.

And the truth is...
honestly, I really want to write. But I want to write things that I'm not ready to write here. Like open-heart surgery stuff. Things that I'm not sure I really believe or understand, which therefore, I'm not ready to put out here in the space where I cannot remove it and cannot defend it and cannot bear with being wishy-washy.

I am trying desperately to be here.

To not turn every experience into a life lesson or a blog, but instead to be grateful for the
million

little

breaks of light in my day.

I am battling my own desire to escape this season through the internet, through Facebook, Twitter; through the affirmation of others instead of the affirming secure love of my Father.

So since there are mountains and dirt roads and stars, I'm letting myself be quiet.

Since I have a toddler and a to-do list and sanity to keep, I'm letting things be.

And in light of spring, hope and new life to come, I'm allowing stories to be written so that I have stories to share here.

Intentionally listen. Deliberately sit.
And hopefully, shine bright.