Tag: waiting

a capricious little beast

[Here’s a poem by an alumna that speaks to a theme that has seemed very important lately]:

Wait

it’s morning now
I sit down
settle in
light a candle,
and wait

a friend comes to greet me
and I pour out my questions
like hot water over tea leaves
and together,
we wait

other writers guide us
from this poem to that one
a quote here, some words there
all these paradoxes rise and fall
like our ribs as we breathe,
and we wait

only if you are patient
with your questions
only when you cease
the frantic quest
for some certainty
that will cement your faith

only as you wait
still as the oak for her lark
to come home again
to nest in her branches

wait here, just wait
wait with the questions,
sit down and wait

and maybe, maybe you will find
it’s not the answers that you seek
but the questions themselves
the only way you know how to live

and maybe, maybe you will see
that even without the answers
you can go on

accepting as a gift
each moment of grace
accepting as a gift
each mystery and absurdity
accepting as a gift
all the joy and all the frustration

of understanding you will never stop asking
and understanding you will never know
and understanding it’s okay to let go

you do not need what once you sought
that capricious little beast, certainty

  • Ash

waiting for a funny old uncle this advent

[Thanks to Agnes Kramer-Hamstra for digging out this quote for Advent:]

What we are watching for is a party, and that party is not just down the street making up its mind when to come to us; it’s already hiding in our basement, banging on our steam pipes, and laughing its way up our cellar stairs. The unknown day or hour of its finally bursting into the kitchen and roistering its way through the whole house is not dreadful, it is all part of the divine lark of grace. God is not our mother-in-law coming to check and see if her wedding-present china has been chipped; He is a funny Old Uncle with a salami under one arm and a bottle of wine under the other. We do indeed need to watch for Him, but only because it would be such a pity to miss all the fun.

  • Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of Judgement