The words between us

Thursday, June 22, 2023

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The words between us

Brothers and sisters, if only you would put up with a little foolishness from me! Please put up with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God.

My mind skitters around like a caged housefly, and I am carrying a swatter, but missing when I swing. Then at last, words fall into place.

Nothing more to say about the fly.

But the words are not for my novel, nor for a short story – they are words to share with you and invite me, myself, into a devotion, time with God, a space shaped by lectionary verses and which hopefully gives us a moment of stillness to share.

I don’t have a novel, not so far. And short stories are too long these days. Larry McMurtry nailed me, among others, when he wrote about L. Frank Dobie, a revered Texas writer:

Except in his early books, the anecdote is his basic unit, a unit he grew more and more conditioned to by the weekly newspaper columns he produced without a miss for more than twenty years. At the end of his career he was virtually incapable of doing justice to any story that could not be told in three pages or less.  – In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas (p. 75)

Ah, that’s me, I think. At least that’s how the words come, in bursts of 500 or 700 words, and then silence. A good silence, a prayful one.

In praying do not babble like pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them.

Ah, thank you Jesus. I want that to be “me” too. Natalie Goldberg writes about writing, and I think it’s also true for praying: “Write (pray) what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” (from Writing Down the Bones)

Ron Rolheiser, an eloquent, careful and prodigious reader, quotes Philip Gorski. “The lines of good and evil do not go between us, they go through us.” This quickly becomes evident when I am split open, or when you are. We are all caught in the fallen-ness of our humankind and we cannot quite be good. But God does not falter in his love, even though He knows us better than we know ourselves.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Words matter, and the ensuing silence matters even more. Another Rolheiserism, “Silence gives depth and communication gives you sanity. But both need both.”

Tonight I hope to celebrating a couple of birthdays with Melissa and Aly, anticipating Chris’ family’s trip to Alaska, having a convivial conversational meal at an Asian place in Springfield called Mimosa, and then sleeping just the right number of hours in their comfortable guest bed. Tomorrow I hope to visit my sister Mary Kay, my brother John and my aunt Vera in Peoria. I hope we love each other in conversation but sometimes surrender to silence, and let our prayers fill up any empty space.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done here on earth, as it is in heaven.

 (2 Corinthians 11, Psalm 111, Romans 8, Matthew 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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