Here God. Here.
Here God. Here.
Last night I woke at 4am. Sleep had left me. I got up and collected myself on the couch. The fan in reverse over head. The doors closed to the cold. The waning moon reflecting just enough light off the remaining snow so the dogs could make their sleepy way and join me, one on either side.
Here God, here. Here I sit, not waiting, not wanting, just sitting. Thoughts bubble up. Here God. Sounds are sounding. Here God. The tickle of a hair on my cheek. Here God. Like a waking dream, an inner vision of a flock of birds taking off in flight, and Here God.
After an hour or so I lay down, thinking sleep might come, but my heart was too full with giving, with handing everything over. After a time, dawn peeked through my eyes and birdsong peeked through my ears. Day was coming. Night was giving itself away. Here God, said the night. Here God, said the day.
How do we fit the world in a word, a sentence, a page? How do we dare to take it all — everything that is and is not — and speak of it? Here God. Make me brave enough to step down and step down and step down, to make way for you, to get out of your way.
After a time, Stephen came out from the bedroom. The dogs rejoiced. I can hardly bear how much I love him. All of him. His sweetness. His harshness. His brokenness. His wholeness. I remember his young self. Beautiful, dark, brooding. And now, I cut his gray sprinkled hair on the porch. This man, this long in my life man. This father of my children. This healer of my heart, for his staying, for his never-wavering staying.
This is what I have come to know. My mind — this thing I take to be my self — is a bird nest, a collection of bits and bobs, leaves and fluff, twigs and fur, tinsel and dirt. Ugly and shiny things collected from the inner and outer worlds, and somehow cobbled together in a mess called “me”, “I”. My God, how we twirl and twist ourselves into something, hiding the thing, that jewel, in the midst of suffering (and joy) that is not suffering (nor joy).
Here God, be like the wind and pull a thread from this nest, that twig, this ribbon, that button, this leaf, that fluff, this bit, that bob. Be the wind that pulls me apart and scatters me to the world.
Make me as you wish, but make me always giving. Make me a spilling river into the ocean of the world. Make me the rain, falling, falling. Make me the light of the sun, giving, giving.
Here God. Here.
