Sunday blew through the doors of St. John’s, a whirling flurry of white surplices and giggling children. After the last notes of the oboe floated up into the rafters and the bulletins were collected from the pews, the altar cleared, and coffee consumed, I shuffled into the nave of the church to have a sit and to take a moment to soak in the stillness. As the afternoon light cut silent trails through the settling dust I enjoyed the rare chance to just be in that space, to sit where so many of you sit week in and week out. And, sitting there, the echoes of Psalm 62 came back to me in that moment – my soul in stillness waits.
Fall, this season peppered with back-to-school and a rush of activity, resists the pull of our soul toward silence and stillness. After a summer of leisure, of lakeside retreats and books on the porch, autumn brings with it an over-industrious urge. The promise of winter propels some of us into a forced productivity and busy-ness. During the months of September, October, and November the voice in my head seems to shout “Hurry, hurry, hurry! – Get it all done!” At the same time, the voice in my heart cries out – “Slow down! Rest! Wait!”
Waiting is often a theme more closely linked with the coming season of Advent – yet here, in “ordinary time”, in the busy season of harvest, the need for waiting and watching is as vital as any other time in our lives. Only as we pause, only as we sit, only as we wait, can we tumble to the knowledge of who and whose we are. When we stop and when we are quiet, we can silence the urgent voices of both our head and our heart and hear the one that is both still and small whispering to us “Come to me and rest. Come to me for refuge. Come to me and be made whole.”
This is a message that transcends creed and that finds resonance in both sacred and secular realms. One of my favorite bands in a recent song on their new album puts voice to the longing for restoration in a song simply titled “I Will Wait”. If you’re a fan of rambling and rowdy bluegrass music, give it a listen, and even if you are not, the words stand on their own as a poetic testament to the need we each have, to pause, to wait, and to find in our waiting, the embrace of the One whose love knows no bounds.
And I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of dust
Which we’ve known
Will blow away with this new sun
And I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
And I’ll kneel down
Know my ground
And I will wait, I will wait for you
See you in church.
Faithfully,
Jered+
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGKfrgqWcv0]
