Distant

It is just a day like any other, but I am aware, suddenly, of the unveiling work, known by the grayness of all I see. No life, no savor, no sweetness. Taste and see, the Lord says, and I remember the taste of him, but it is a memory today.

Pray, says my heart, return to him and plead for his presence, as David does. But I am slow. Other things provide a quick and easy imitation of nearness, though they fade fast and leave my mind unsettled, unable to find the rest in him it desires.

Life seems too long today, a vast expanse to be traversed, full of its own joys perhaps, but lonely, a scattered distance. When can I see him?

I know the age I live in. I know this is the great gathering, and we tarry here until it is complete. Hence my labor. But some days I tarry with no greater end, nothing lived or experienced, the world not with me, as Denise Levertov would say. It is half life, the worst of both.

Edwards would say it is a failure to improve the time, a squandering of the ten given me, and he is surely right. But grace, O God.

It is a day. Let me live, Lord!