A gleaming, snow blanket wraps around the streets as far as the eye can see. Shivering through web like trees, torn, frayed thin. Spun to emptiness.
Weeping beneath the last leaves. Draping a loose knit shawl across the shoulder of the hill. Filling deep the valley.
It absorbs all sound and silence lingers far and wide.
We've been starting school late every day for a while now. Loose ends left untied. Seemingly unravelling.
I have fought tired to repair and patch the fabric of these "lost hours" into clean cut, utilitarian aprons till today.
This morning refused to stir the silence and shatter it's precious, fragility.
My eyes blinked at the stark lace work frosted upon the windowpane.
The unusual view prompted a new perspective.
I would preserve the space it needed to sing it's new, quiet song within the usually crowded chambers of my own heart.
The chambers that fill so easily with the clattering sound of a hundred voices calling me in all directions. A high ceiling room with perfect acoustics for the voice of the world to resound loud.
Drilling and dashing against my soul like hail. Raging daily soliloquy. Underlining points, numbers and strategies like a squeaky marker across an office white board...
Fit in, conform, be diligent in recognisable ways, create commercial products, work toward tangible results, make sure your children will be marketable, learn valued subjects, hoard, cram, revise, memorise, repeat.
Yet I am walking two tight ropes at the same time. One high, they other low. And I am losing my footing on both.
Maybe, sometimes it is good to fall.
I'm learning this as I dust the white flakes from my brow.
I fall hard on days like today.
Days when
I fall from my expectations.
The criteria and check lists I've used as security blankets tighter than straight jackets. And
I fall blue and icy, my own breath barely escaping from my mouth.
And I realise the ties must come undone.
I must come undone.
The days when the straight roman road of what seems sensible, leaves me weak and I drift down some small lonesome path in the brush. And
I fall under the cover of thorns and wildflowers.
Today the snow falls silent around me. And I am buried. My home has become an igloo.
The murmurs of the world half a hemisphere away.
Today I let myself drift into the white blank canvas of the snow's silent wisdom.
I close off the world and open my heart to Him alone.
And His list is so different, so radically different. A yoke that is easy, a burden that is light.
He whispers soft as snow fleece caught upon the breeze.
" Just sit here with me a while. Don't rush away.
Is there any task more important than this? This listening?
Have you been following my lead? Really?
Are you doing only the things needful, the things that will matter eternally?
Do you really trust me to take your children and you along the paths I dug out and laid in truth, just for their feet? Do you really trust me to take you down the paths that I carved for you long before you were born. Way back through the dendrites of time?
You are trying to follow two paths, and your soul is falling through the divide between them.
Simply come toward me. Lean into my words. Draw close."
But Lord, we have no back up plan, financial or otherwise. I never followed the conventional route and I suffered for it in ways I wish to preserve my children from. I am afraid sometimes.
I can't catch every ball.
The still, silent snow drifts deep. I am wading out bare foot.
"Don't you see. You don't have to.
Drop them, drop every one that isn't given by my hand."
How do I know which ones are given by your hand?
"Have enough faith to stop the merry - go - round.
Sit still, listen. Embrace your journey.
It won't look like most journeys.
Most journeys are a grasping outward. A reaching, a striving, a gaining of ground.
Your journey will be a letting go of all that hinders, all that is not necessary.
Your journey will not be about striving but resting, in me.
Your journey will not be about making but meaning.
It will seem invisible. Your footsteps light, white.
Unnoticeable, day after day.
Evaporating in the morning, like prints carved in snow.
But they will leave an indelible mark within.
And they will form a path.
And it will guide your children through.
From Winter to Spring.
From Death to Life.
From your cradle to my manger."
Wasn't the manger, an animal trough filled with hay?
Was Mary fearful too, that night in the cold, damp cave, the sounds of a strange land dashing against the curved silence of her heart?
Maybe she wasn't listening to the hundred different voices. Maybe she sought out only one to hear and follow.
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; "
Maybe the winter trees have wisdom in their emptiness.
Maybe I should strive only to stay hungry.
Silent as snow.
So only He can be heard.
Magnified
Birthed.
"Let love be your highest goal..."
1 Corinthians 14:1
Beautiful words found here from here today....
