And I, In Wordless Wonder Wait...

Mother Teresea was once asked what she said to God when she prayed. She answered, "I don't say anything, I just listen." Upon hearing this, her interviewer, with a slightly befuddled look on his face, asked tenatively, "Well...what does God say?" She responded, "He doesn't, he just listens."

Words. They are the method by which many of us take control of our reality - particularly "word-people" like myself and many of you. It's not a bad thing - it's just a thing - a thing you can use badly or excellently, morally or immorally. As has been said before, people have morality, things do not.

Regardless, if you are a word person, you know there are times when words fail. And times when an incredible experience is ruined by your foolish attempts to capture it with words. If you are a word person, then you know the older you get, the less your words are rigid and precise when you approach mysteries. And you know the best words only hold loosely to the edges of those moments and mysteries, if you use words at all.

Have you ever listened? Without words? Have you ever known without knowing what?

Have you ever settled down in a wordless place?

But oh! How desperately we want to hear God's words! How we long for God to control us!

"The Bible is God's word." We receive prophetic words from God. "God is speaking to me." "He walks with me and talks with me..." and so on.

And yet, God seems to be pleased to wordlessly wait in a gentle breeze, a perfect blue sky, a distant roll of thunder, on the edge of my bed in the morning when I roll over and open my eyes and ponder my red walls...

I wonder...does he ponder my red walls? Wordlessly? Listening to me, while I, in wordless ponder watch? Watch the morning sun bring to life this color...

And I'm so thankful - so thankful for his wordless presence here!

I am changed.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 8/02/2004 08:22:00 AM