I am sitting deep within the cave of my heart. It is dark. I glance around myself and see the dim edges of rocks and tunnels. I think I should be scared but I am not. It is so deeply quiet here, so still.
I am sitting on a small ledge that overhangs a pool of still water. It lends a dampness to the cavern that touches my skin and coats the inside of my lungs as I breathe slowly in and out. I stretch my legs and lean back a bit on my arms and listen and wait.
I am waiting for you. For your deep whisper in my heart. For the promise of your own heartbeat within me.
I have forgotten how to seek you, how to wait for you, how to trust your coming. Yet somehow, even after so long away, I trust your coming.
It is not my conjuring or my protocols or rituals that call you forth. It is the shape of how things are, of who you are. It is the very shape of life itself that brings me to you – for that is the truth of it. It is not so much that you must come to me. You are here. Always. At the very center of all that is. How could it be otherwise since you are life itself?
How then can I lose you? How can I live without noticing your heartbeat? How can I let myself be so distracted by the scurry and cries and bustle around me that I forget your unshakable love?
And yet I do forget. And though my own heart blames me for such neglect, your heart surrounds me with welcome. You don’t want our time together to be swallowed by focus on my failures. You simply want to love me and for me to receive and return that love.
After some moments of repentance – which I see as a required penance, but you see as simply clearing space – I let go all the chatter of my soul. I simply breathe, in and out. I count to five, each breath a bit deeper and slower than the last, and I slip into the pool. I float, suspended in the water. Even if I momentarily sink beneath the surface I can still breathe deeply. The pool is liquid grace. I take it in with grateful ease. It fills each cell. I am awash with life, with love … with you.
Amen.
[Image from photo by Jess Ayotte on flickr per cc 2.0]
There is life in the chimes outside my window
I am on the deck of an old wooden sailing ship, conjured up from memories of pirate movies. It dips and sways in violent motion and I cannot stand without great effort. I am thrown against the mast and against the railings. I stagger and slip. There is a howling wind around me. It whips my hair and blows great sheets of water over me, drenching me with cold, wet saltiness. Then I am thrown again. I raise my voice to cry out in the storm, but though I am shouting, no sound can be heard above this turmoil. No one can hear my cry.
Quiet Hope 
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