Plaint

Friday of the Third Week of Advent

 

What is the crying at Jordan?

Who hears, O God, the prophecy?

Dark is the season,

dark our hearts and shut to the mystery

The Hymnal 1982, #69

 

 

In the early morning, while it is still dark, I hear the cry of the windchimes and the creaking of the corners of the house. I lie wakeful, in the liminal space just removed from sleep.

 

In the cry and the rush of the wind I hear also the journeyer’s plaint. The start is left long behind, the end does not seem in sight. Caught in a curve of the path, a passage cut through rock with no apparent egress, an effort with no discernable progress.

 

I know the only way through is forward. I know I have come to the end of this journey before. I know this space of darkness will not last. I know the sun dawns.

 

And with this knowledge, I step into the day, that much closer a full-on encounter with holy mystery.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay