This poem is a retrospective poem, I wrote it a couple of months ago reflective of this past year.
There is so much worth in slowing down, even breaking down, in order to hear God.
Here is the poem:
LISTENING NOW
My world is loud, so loud, in fact, I cannot hear my heart.
So many knots in my stomach, I want to unravel them.
All the callings, yearnings, questions from a place deep, a place hidden -
a place that got lost.
There must be bones buried there, bones of a creature I used to be,
a creature I'm meant to be.
I want to go through, walk in and sort it all out,
but I get to the door of trying and it’s just too hard.
I've posted a note to myself, it's so convincing, "ACCESS DENIED!".
Denied, my true longings, my true self, and in its place are so many tasks,
standards, to do's, to don'ts. Work, phone, e-mail and ipod, and I’m bowing every day to the clock.
A mechanical device, a merciless taskmaster, making sure I get on to the next thing, and the next, and the next after that. Striving to not fail, not let anyone down.
I am time impoverished.
Impoverished, I can't think, I can't rest, I can't even hear.
The still voice, the small voice, the one that knocks and waits for me to
answer. Always ready when I am. He navigates me through the storm toward Himself - the centre, the calm, a place He knows I will be able to hear Him, see Him. It's Eye contact.
Standing on top of a fearful ocean, calling me to step out and join him,
and I want to respond to this invitation.
This invitation, to stop, to Sabbath, to do as He does, receiveing His deep
covenant with me. He wants me to rest and be like a child,
to know, like Hagar alone by that spring in the desert,
"the God who sees me!". Building His Kingdom in my heart.
Feeling His kindness thick in the air even as He exposes me,
takes away my hiding places.
"Don't be afraid". I swallow these words like cold glacier water deep into my body, and I allow myself to be ushered into His courts.
His courts, this holy place, I cross the threshold, and I am altered.
Lucid, aware now that there is a profound freedom awaiting me,
a weightlessness that I thought belonged only to the angels, the clean ones. My heart begins again to feel that overflow, worship has returned.
“You are good! You are good! You are good! You are good!”.
I can smell his comforting scent all around me,
and I am reintroduced to joy as I slide down majestic hallways in my socks, landing in a pile of holy pillows.
Pillows, on which I rest all of my heaviness. Abiding. Full weight, body limp, eyes shut. I breathe, respirations in and out, a tide in my body.
I am quiet. "Like a weaned child is my soul within me".
The words echo in my heart, for I like King David have been fighting, seeking justification, offering excuses; now understanding that resistance is futile in light of the desperation in my heart, "I am that man!". I am that woman. Closer and closer, He is moving, and as the silence deepens, I can finally say in earnest, "I am listening now".
Listening, as He speaks so gently, His voice reaching the farthest horizon of all that I am. Slowly He begins to access that which I have denied.
Stinging tears on red cheeks, the shock and horror as I see the parts of
my conscious the hot iron has threatened to sear shut!
All of my secrets brought to light - grief, forgotten callings, unspoken prayers, shame, sin, and so many lies. Bars of iron, each one of these, built up all around me, and I didn't hear the clanking, the metal on metal,
because my world has been so loud.
And then with a weak voice I cry...
"YAWEH!"
Silence.
"YAWEH!"
Healing.
"YAWEH!"
Restoring.
YAWEH.
So loud, the cry of my heart for silence. So still and small, the voice that I need to hear. So free, the moment He speaks and I listen…
I am listening now.
