Draw away to listen to Him: "be-still."
All I'm hearing- noises louder- thump, thump
Heart is pumping- this is peaceful down time?
I am doubting. People ask me, "What's wrong?"
They aren't shutting out my silence
Small talk conversation fillers
Draw away to blessed silence-
Cursed! Cursed!
Alone.
Again.
I keep missing that train.
It takes everyone else.
I'm left standing in rain.
And rain doesn't drown hell,
Or dull seven years' pain
Of doors quick to expel
Still. . .
I'll keep list'ning through the sadness
For the faintest distant sound
I will learn His voice by practice
And heaven will come around
Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." I was supposed to practice being still on a church retreat I recently went to. Well, it's just me and God most of the time anyway. I withdraw often, because I can't relate to where most people my age are at in life. I get discouraged and feel alone. Sure, God listens. But how am I supposed to hear Him? He is silent. I want him to tell me why. Why am I where I am at in life still, and everyone else seems to have moved along quite well? I keep missing trains. I'm stuck at that station. It's been 7 years. The doors shut on me every time I try to step onboard. And I'm left alone every time. In silence. Being still. I guess that's what God wants me to do- know He's there, and to keep waiting for Him to return for me. That's one thing I am promised. So, I started writing this poem on the retreat. You can maybe hear the train chugging closer as you read it aloud, then passing by, clacking rhythmically on the tracks. Funny how when I centered it, it looks like the shape of a train coming head-on. . . or maybe it's my imagination. Lol.
ReplyDeleteFrom an existential standpoint I can relate with your plight in a somewhat "detached involvement" sort of way. There is a sense of 'existential loneliness' and of being a passive observer or a spectator on the sidelines looking in on life. Like the very first instant when you wake up and gain consciousness, before there is even time to remember who you are ... and there is nothing but raw, unfiltered, direct consciousness and awareness itself. Existence in the moment, from one experiential flow to the next, is always pure, unadulterated, unfetter and absolutely free.
ReplyDeleteKnowing "why" makes everything easier to bear, but it is not the final answer or ultimate destination. We don't really want to know why, that is only half of it, it is about experiencing those distinctively particular emotions, experiences and happenings that we find most salient, and the states of mind that we cherish the most. We simply want to hold on to those fleeting moments for as long as possible, to meditatively bask and abide in the shade and rest of that instant, to stretch it out and prolong it for as long as possible and then some.
Reality is sometimes a self-resolving paradox in the sense that the more you try the harder it becomes, and the only way out is to be still long enough to realize that it is human nature to overcompensate and rubberband from one end to the other. Often we see what we want to see, not what is actually there. Forget head-on, perhaps there is no train at the train station, maybe there never was, and the stillness itself is the answer, the deliverance and the absolution.