One in the Morning, Listening to Four in the Morning

“Reverence is one of man’s answers in the presence of mystery.”
–Abraham Joshua Heschel

The quote above was read by me tonight from a friend’s blog. She’s gorgeous. Her voice is gorgeous. Go look at her page: Lesley Sawyer

I was just listening to her song, Four in the Morning and I feel this weight. Always the weight. There’s this odd fuzz that rolls up over me. “I didn’t know if this was the way it was supposed to feel” she sings. “we were idiots, my god we were idiots.”

I smile.

I sit in my bed, my books piled up beside me, hopeless, helpless, kind. I know that all of the words in the world couldn’t reach and heal the rift between here and heaven. But it’s words, and expression, that reaches around us, connects one moment of someone’s pain to another’s moment of joy.

Whatever creative impulse grows out of her, whatever the road that lead to the pushing up and laying down of that song, or that letter, or your hands on my forehead; it can only be love that holds us all together. No matter the differences.

How someone’s viewpoint on beauty can be my home away from home. I can curl into someone’s recollections and sigh. You may have no recollection of me, but in your dreams, I have stopped by to watch, to listen, to spark off your beauty because I’ve been bleeding. I’ve been singing to get here, sitting up late at night, watching the dust settle on the ceiling fan. Watching my fingers find the right words to answer old broken hearts.

And someday, my rough edges will smooth and calm someone else’s pain.

That’s what we’re here for. Because without knowing it, we are each other’s keeper…regardless of what or how we feel, we are guarding, not our own hearts, but our neighbors. When we rejoice, it’s for some stranger. When we grieve or break open our alabaster heart, it’s the Other’s burden, soon we will know why.

I will keep reminding myself this. (how pain makes us turn inward and forget)

I will practice reverence.