I sit at my kitchen table nursing a mug of tea. Fall is barreling down at us. Leaves make haphazard patterns on the driveway. Squirrels do their ecstatic and frantic digging in the front lawn. I wonder what is wrong with me that I cannot seem to make my piece of the puzzle fit.
I pray words about how helpless I feel in the face of the world barreling down on me. And I, holding my ragged little piece, do not know where to put it except within.
The silence holds my prayer as my breathing deepens and more words begin to form.
I do not belong here and yet here I am, Lord, just as You were. I have tried my best to be a social animal and again and again I fail. I am more at home alone.
The silence listens and I continue my litany of woe.
Why have you left my son and I with such few consolations?
Am I of service? Maybe I do not know it. Maybe just my honest sorrow counts for something.
And I type these words for the few that feel as I do.
You are the holder of infinite sorrow. It has scorched you around the edges so that I could come into your heart. And now your service is shining bright.
You are looking for the spring that will release you from the sorrow while you are bathing in peace in every breath.
The world disguises sorrow and it is rotting like a pumpkin after Halloween. Disguised sorrow is of no use.
Many sorrowed as I was crucified and they buried me with great love and silence. That silence was rent when I arose. That was true sorrow.
And your service to me is based on that real sorrow. And I have blessed you with the spring concealed from the world. Only put a toe in it and you rise above the falseness of this world.
Do not forget that your piece fits as a spring. Your words cry out with honesty that is needed now more than ever.
And these are my words for this fall Monday.
Vicki Woodyard
Your words and work are beautiful Vicki. Today’s reading seems to ask for change of some kind, for things/events/people/the world to be different than they are… at least a little. For me–even being discontent– somewhere I know that if I could somehow change the course, I wouldn’t know which pieces to alter, or where to begin and end. And that’s it. Isn’t it so? We remain with things as they are, the world as it is, like it or not, being what’s what. Until it’s not.
10:11 AM (2 minutes ago)
You hit the nail on the head as far as not knowing. I do not think we CAN know. Somehow, not knowing, is a yielding that somehow
changes us on an alchemical level. What is asked of us is that we bring our honesty to the silence instead of our mechanical “fixing.”
Jesus could not be fixed. The world could not be fixed. And that is how it all unfolds. Something higher is holding us and it requires us
to surrender to the idea that we can fix what is wrong. I have done that all of my life and reaped nothing but regret.
How soulfully poetic, deeply helpful and guiding me straight into the real essences of life. All gracious is Your writing dearest Vicki – touching me always kind, friendly and loving, just there where I am in my own quest. And yes, still often stumbling 🙂 Thank You so very much for Your ever bright lightening, Your space and time for us in Your fundamentally enriching sharing. Clearly You point into the heavens on earth, where doors open and we can change and transform all there is, for the betterment, for clearer understanding about who we are and how we together as humanity, with all there is, best proceed. CONGRATULATION!
The mind can solve earthly problems; it can’t solve spiritual ones. And so we have to sit with our unknowing and all of our failures with no mental effort to change ourselves or
the world. And they are one and the same.