From time to time I reread Penelope Wilcock’s books, The Hawk and the Dove, The Wounds of God and The Long Fall.
Here’s a scene I marked in my copy of The Long Fall to share with you. Take a moment to take it in – the setting, the poetry, the offering.
Two friends are outside in the “aromatic darkness of the physic garden” to see the stars. Peregrine, the former abbot of the monastery, is in a wheelchair, recovering from a stroke. Brother Tom reflects on his friend’s predicament and what this starry night offers him, by way of healing.
What a relief it must be, Tom reflected, to be away from the geometry of man-made things, feeling the wild, anarchic beauty of the night wind’s caress and seeing the random flung scattering of the stars, to a man who has lost the ability to interpret patterns, who has been baffled and defeated by codes and schemes these long dismal weeks. It must have been like putting down a great burden to come out here where there was no pattern, no code, only the wordless immediacy of life. Tom thought on the times in his life when everything had seemed to be disintegrating. There had been such a healing reassurance in the rhythm of natural things. Maybe, he pondered, maybe it was not that it had no pattern, but that human beings were part of the design, and couldn’t look at it because it didn’t exclude them, only restored them to themselves.
Day and night, the dance of the stars, the cool fingers of the breeze … it wove men into its purpose like single threads. Even the broken ones could be woven together with the others to make the whole thing beautiful. There had to be a pattern, surely, because it was not empty of meaning, all this. It made more sense than anything. It was just that the pattern was not so much of a code … more like a dear, familiar face.
~ from Chapter IV, The Long Fall by Penelope Wilcock
Call to worship
Only the hungry search for bread.
Only the thirsty look for water.
This is a place for those who are hungry and thirsty in spirit.
Only those who ache for meaning will pursue it.
Only those who yearn for a deeper life will seek it.
This is a place for those who ache and yearn for something more.
So let us come here today with our hunger and thirst,
our unsatisfied longings, our heart-felt yearnings,
and let the God of life satisfy our souls.
~ written by Ann Siddall, posted on re:Worship
From the blog
Restless / restore
Bloom where you’re planted
Unite my divided heart