conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

...on that first day.

My soul's Healer,
Keep me at even,
Keep me at morning,
Keep me at noon,
On rough course faring,
Help and safeguard
My means this night.
I am tired, astray, and stumbling,
Shield me from snare and sin.

In the beginning of all things was a Voice...an uttered Word so potent that it was alive, aware, creative, and free. It spoke itself into being and we who are the echo of that voice came to life in the same moment. Light was born. Trees grew. Creatures crawled on the land, flew through the air, and swam in the seas. A single voice. A unison Word.

Of course, as you know, something happened. We tell the stories of decisions made by a man and a woman. We tell stories of human sacrifice or the original man. We even have a story about a turtle and how all the world is upon its back. We have these stories because in our heart of hearts we think that just maybe something went wrong. We've thought this for a long time. There's too much noise now, too much chaos. How can this possibly be unity?

Did we forget how to speak? Or did we forget how to listen? Were we punished or was it some terrible accident. It is impossible to know now. Time does what it does and say what you will about time, we are not who our forebears were nor will those who follow us centuries away be who we now are. But we know the Voice spoke a Word.

And here I sit wondering as the sun sets if I will ever do more than long for that Voice. I wonder if I'll hear it somehow one day. Maybe. I pray for it. I ask for it. I listen for it and I even have the audacious job of speaking for that original Word (Has there ever been a better definition for foolishness?). I live knowing it's there. In my heart of hearts I know this. The echo is still there...a lingering shimmer of that first impulse, that first vibration through the air. But it's only the barest echo, a subtle vibration and no longer a Word...but the subtle memory of it knit in me.

So it is this memory I hold up as the day closes and the night folds itself around me. It is in this Spirit that I offer up my evening prayer and beg your forgiveness if I have failed you in some way today. Tomorrow we'll begin again and I shall hope to hear, to feel, to sense, the Voice and the Word spoken on that first day.

Posted by tripp at February 4, 2010 05:15 PM