Waiting

He pulls me back, from all the world.
[sit with Me. sit with Me.]
I do not hear His voice,
but I know His very shape.

I maneuver the dishes and sit with Him
I knife the onion and sit with Him
I rag the counters and sit with Him

I make the coffee and climb in my chair
and the Bible is open on my lap
and I sit. with. Him.
~~
Years ago now I sat in a different chair,
in a different place.
I approached Him with eyes on
my sacrifice;
I cried out for understanding,
as if beating on His back.

I wanted what I wanted,
and I wanted it immediate.

Then.

An expanse spread out before me,
deep and blue and pulsing dark.
Depths of ocean, and in it moving
a giant ancient of the ancient,
crusty with gathering sedge.

A whale. Moving. Slow.
Slower than ever I could imagine.

His eye locked on mine,
old. deep. holy. quiet.
my clenched fist not larger,
that dark blue-black meeting me with keenest wise, and knowing.

This girth steadily coursing, moving past me,
His eye locked straight unto my spirit;
I saw its edges, the rings of time,
and from It thundered words of invitation:

Are you going to go with Me?

Invitation, and conviction.

I climbed on His back, and went.
~~
I sit here now, new chair, new place.
The expanse is deep and all around me.

I am quiet now, such older.
All my words are spent,
my fist no longer beats;
my sacrifice folded into untold silence,
bleeding threads throughout these years.

Then.

In the silence, a whisper, a briefly ancient golden moment
rippling along the ocean bottom.

I look and I notice, I see a simple thing:

A girl, resting on the back of a beast,
her arms around His great wide solid,
her head laid down, her eyes bent along His side.
Simply she is being. With peace, reliance, trust
in His ancient beautiful.

I remember:
She had gone with Him, a stranger,
she had sat in straight-backed faith.
She had trusted His keenly knowing eye,
but her eyes looked out, ahead.

And now, I understand:
Today she is sown only to Him, satisfied.

In the slow, the ocean of the ancient deep and holy quiet,
the eye of Keenly Wise has turned my heart to love.
~~
He pulls me back, from all the world.
[sit with Me. sit with Me.]
I do not hear His voice,
but I know His very shape.
~~
"In the spiritual life (God chooses) to try our patience first of all by his slowness...He is slow, we are swift and precipitate. It is because we are but for a time, and he has been from eternity. There is something greatly overawing in the extreme slowness of God. Let it overshadow our souls, but let it not disquiet them...We must wait for God, long, meekly, in the wind and the wet, in the thunder and the lightning, in the cold and the dark. Wait, and he will come. He never comes to those who do not wait. He does not go to their road. When he comes, go with him, but go slowly, fall a little behind; when he quickens his pace, be sure of it, before you quicken yours. But when he slackens, slacken at once. And do not be slow only, but silent, very silent, for He is God." [Frederick Faber]