Prayer, place, and the attentive life.
What is prayer?Swifts skimming lowscreaming their presence.
Beneath a brooding sky,where petitions once echoed,a bee visits clover.
A raucous squall of crowsreturning to their roost.A small, dark feather found.
Late afternoon heat,a startled bat takes flighthigh in the abbot’s chamber.
What is prayer?It is the gentle touch of rain,like baptism,like immersion,like the Spirit descendingwith the Father’swhisper,‘You are my beloved son.’
Something has changed.
This morning, in the half-light,I woke to a river of mist flooding the Levels.
Sheep paddled the shallows,their gaunt faces, wide-eyed,shocked by the first chill,the first frost.
They have pacedand sweated summer days of drought,nosing the charcoal embers of pasturein vain.
Something has changed,I can feel the light receding,the night stretching onrestless, haunted by the cry of an owlbehind the window panewhere I pace the landing.
Something has changed:I feel a loss,a letting goagain.
This evening, driving back through the villageI watch the tail endof the last housemartinskimming a hawthorn hedge,heading south alone.
‘being in the silent depths of listening
enables us to hear.’ Bill Kirkpatrick
That night, that night the air was thick with song –heady, drowsy, intoxicatinglike some smoke-filled folk club,where the gathered throng hoped the music would never end.
That night, that night the world stopped to listen,leaned in, craned to hear each riff, each flourish,the crescendo, diminuendo,chanting like believers in unison –praise the Father,praise the Son,praise the Spirit –the three in one.That night, that night the breeze stilled over the levels,and you eavesdropped as vocals were warmedand a booming bass cradled a rhythm in its subsonic arms.
That night, that night you held your breath(we all held our breath),as you tuned in then stepped backand waited, hoped, longed for the music to begin.
And that night, that night, at some ungodly hour,the planets aligned over Somersetand an attentive listening ear –the ear of the one who does not slumber or sleep –heard what few will ever hear:from out of silence, out of the abyss a harmonyin unison singing –praise the nightingale,praise the cuckoo,praise the bittern –the three in one.