At the daily office, even as we plod methodically through
the psalms, sometimes the words begin to throb with a strange intensity, and to
dance in the air like overcharged particles of light. Around us the air seems to ring with the anticipation of
bells and birds. What can we do in response to this unexpected surge of
incipient light? In fact, all do is proceed with our psalmody, for we are a battered and
weary church, wearing our ancient vocation like a salvation army coat, wearing
it in full knowledge that in so doing we have made ourselves a target for God’s
alarming emptiness, and that aliens and strangers will teach our own truths to
us as if we had never heard of them.
3 comments:
When I've experienced this "alarming fullness" and "alarming emptiness" as its correlation, I am moved to recall Yeats poem: "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, and a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made..."
and live alone in the bee loud glade...
I understand the part about light, the charged atmosphere of the daily office of your post and certainly the emptiness of God, but not the strangers teaching me my own truths as if I'd never heard of them. Did you mean when the disciples sat down to eat with Jesus but didn't recognize him until he broke the bread, or something else?
Post a Comment