vespers

I come home from the soaring

in which I lost myself.

For the past week or so, I've been reading for 15 minutes when I wake up and 15 minutes before I go to bed. After a few days, I couldn't resist journaling each time. In the morning, I've been reading Ann Voskamp's book and I write down an insight or two that I anticipate will carry me through the day. Or at least get me started with hope. At night, I usually read Rilke or the Psalms and journal a few lines that bring me comfort. I've come to think of these times as my Matins and Vespers, morning and evenings prayers. Maybe not prayer so much as re-centering. It's been hard to pray these months, but I will read poetry and feel my spirits lift. That's enough for now.

Tonight I read a couple lines from Rilke that named the movement in my soul this past week of re-centering. If I'm being honest, I think he's alluding to a more positive "soaring"...being lost in God. My lostness has been Dante's "dark woods" of despair, knowing God is there, just maybe not for me. But I read these lines and I anticipate the expressions of gratitude I will read in the morning and I believe a little more that the dark woods are not the end of my journey.

I come home from the soaring

in which I lost myself.

Now I am still

and plain:

no more words.