Saturday, April 07, 2007

Holy Week 2007-Great Sabbath
One can only take so much of the tension and depression and death that Holy Week climaxes in. Between friends and family and family of friends, I have thought a lot about death since last summer. So today is the Sabbath. In fact it is the Great Sabbath- the end of Holy Week.

I need a sabbath no less than the disciples did that first Great Sabbath. I need to turn my thoughts elsewhere. If I don't, perhaps I won't be ready for what's next. That is for tomorrow.

But today only emptiness prevails on this Great Sabbath. In the end, even for us who live after the resurrection, silence may be as good a way to spend our spiritual lives this day.

Words and Silence

Word
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart
To silence that is joy, is adoration.
The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterened time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words breaks me,
And then, in silence leaves me healed and mended.
I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen.

Madeleine L’Engle - Reflections on a Writing Life
found at Poems for the Journey

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