The Torrent

The Hermitage

April 4, 2019

It’s happened.

Once God opened the Vault in my Holy Space I have been inundated with meditations.

I can’t sit still for even a few minutes without my inner Author opening the lid on another of the boxes of reflections I’ve stored on the shelves lining the walls of my inner life. Containers full of the Artifacts of my life...sealed, unopened, — many forgotten — but all carefully saved by the Curator for a day that I never anticipated would come.

It’s been happening for a while now, but let’s look at just today. A few minutes ago I sat down while some laundry was drying and a new load was washing. I was listening to Roger Whittaker’s Greatest Hits album. Five songs generated five new reflections on past memories - most having to do with my life with Andrea, but at least one about my life in college.

Earlier, at lunch, I was sitting on the veranda eating some shrimp gumbo and watching the birds. Especially the hummingbirds -- fighting over who had rights to the nectar in the bright red feeder. I drank the last few swallows of soup from the bowl. (Hey, no judging. I’m allowed to do that. I live alone now.) And then I drifted off into inner space.

When I agin looked at my watch fifteen minutes had vanished, and in that short space of time I’d mulled over...downsizing...protecting “my” territory...God’s largesse (if I were putting tick marks, that one would have multiple slashes.)

And, finally, The Torrent, which ultimately drove me to the computer to try to capture the moments before they sank back into the swamp of opportunities unexamined and cast aside.

Yes, my Vault has a swamp. Doesn’t yours? And you can be certain. The Curator makes sure those are waterproof boxes.

This morning the detritus left behind as the Torrent swept through, was, among other things, “Roaring Lion or Angel of Light, which I just posted.

Each of these ponderings seemed like micro-reflections in one sense...minutes at the most. But I could feel each of them plunging deep into my holy space, prying at the door behind which lie long buried memories, pictures, dreams, what-ifs — lives unlived because I chose at the time to take another road.

It seems like God is trying to make up for all the years I have been asleep (or, at best, somnambulistic.) Cramming 81 years of unassimilated spirituality into whatever days I have remaining.

Yesterday I started a list of some of these reflections. I organized it into those themes that seem to keep emerging. The list now numbers eleven. I’m absolutely certain that before I fall asleep tonight I will have added something more.

And when God is on your trail, He’s quite insistent and creative.

After lunch I downloaded another book for my Kindle app. This time it was “Devotions; The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver.” I came to an abrupt halt when I read “Storage.” In eighteen lines she captured and braided together three of the strands of my life I’ve been trying to decipher and organize as God interjects them into my meditations again and again.

The clothes dryer is insistently clamoring to be unloaded. It’s raucous buzzer --.aannnttt...aaannnttt -- as unrelenting as God’s quest for my sanctification.

So I guess that’s enough for this time…

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Till then…

Thanks for Journeying with me

Epilogue

The album:

Roger Whittaker's Greatest Hits; RCA Victor; Spotify

The Poem - "Storage"

Devotions: the Selected Poems Of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver - Penguin Press - 2017; Amazon Kindle

Another of may favorite poems:

The Hound Of Heaven

Francis Thompson-Michael Kelly - Forgotten Books - 2015

citation found at:

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hound-of-heaven/