weavings and shinings

Here is where I land:

happy when my mind is free, when I hear the old, old stories gritty. Pedestrian, if you will. When I see harsh sun reflect off the Sea, taste dust, and move weary feet. Finally, resting on a cushion in the home of old friends, straining to hear his words to her. I want to embrace her expectant interest, her loving gaze.

“Are you saying,” she asks, “it’s not about taking over? I always thought…”

And he smiles. “We have a small role to play,” he says. “Like the tiniest seed in your garden. Insignificant. At least, that’s how it will appear. But think of those who came before you. Was David always on the throne?”

She shakes her head, eyes bright. “He was the youngest. No one considered him worthy of anointing…Then he was hunted.”

He nods.

“Oh,” she says. Her fingers twist her robe’s hem. “I see.”

“Waiting,” he says. “You will wait a long time. On the run. Misunderstood. But you’ll always have what’s here and now. No one can take it from you.”

***

Here is where others land:

whole selves embrace the morning, wriggling one might guess, if one hadn’t any reference. But the stylized movements are cryptically ethnic, patterns of bowing, prostration, hand to head, to belly, one shoulder, the other. The painted, haloed visage on the stand is kissed by some with weary faces, with lines from suffered years, in which the eyes are tender.

Their minds release care through words like well-worn beads. The chanting tone, the repetition. Glorification believed. Holy God. Holy mighty. Yet woven with echoes of long centuries hunted; waiting: “Lord have mercy.”

They recall his teaching, the stories are tradition. Mystical the elements they grasp. They rise above the gritty world, the prisons and beatings and tearing of the lions’ jaws.

***

I tell Victoria it was good for me to visit St. John’s again, to visualize meanings in the liturgy. And love. My, but there are ancient seeds of love beneath this ground.