Has it ever happened to you? You are doing something, maybe cooking or travelling or reading, and then comes this sudden swirl of emotions. You start to tear up and you are not sure why. Richard Beck had one of those moments while mowing the grass.
He said he wasn’t sure if he was just being a sentimental fool or if he has encountered God. Then he wrote this prayer he called “Untitled”.
You are not in the earthquake
or the fire.
But there are times when the sight of the bluebird
breaks my heart for the beauty and the joy of it.
And there are times when the soft poetry of the breeze
in the branches of this tree
or there lightly dancing through the hair of a small child
shakes me loose and lifts my heart
in song and praise, unspoken and too heavy to carry.And there are times when I feel you in the holy tides of sadness and grief,
in the protest and wailing when something precious has been torn
or lost.
The times when I feel you in the heaviness and awful weight of tears
and in the howling cold silences between the spaces of the heart.And I don’t even know
if I am hearing in the whispering
or if you are the echo of my imaginings and longings and dreams
when all is very quiet, lonely and sad.
When there is only the stars and the movement of soft breathing
waiting.And yet,
here you are
once again
washing me clean in the crushing ache, the poignant baptism of beauty and lament
whispering to me in the worship of my surprising inexplicable tears,
the quiet melody I can hear when hushed, out of the whirlwind of my days and confusions.
I don’t know what this is.
I never have.
This love, this joy, this longing and sorrow.
I don’t know what this is.So I confess.
