A Concord Pastor Comments: Pause for Prayer: FRIDAY 9/8

Photo by Susan Abbott

Today's Pause for Prayer is inspired by Susan Abbott's photo of an exhibit that is "coming soon" (see the fine print in the lower left corner) and will open at Boston's Museum of Fine Art on September 24.

Few might guess, Lord,
that with the pace we keep
in the midst of all our hustle and bustle,
in our obsession with activity,
that in all this commotion -
our hearts, indeed, do yearn,
do truly long,
for the still point of this turning world...

In the midst of it all,
in spite of it all,
because of it all -
our souls yearn,
truly long,
for the respite of an encounter with you,
you, Lord,
the still point
in this mad, mad, mad, mad world...

We seek the stillness you are,
the stillness you offer,
the stillness you invite us to enter,
the stillness of the peace that knows
no brokenness or change
but rather (and only) the simplicity
of serenity and contentment,
of the perfect peace of you who are,
have ever been and always will be:
that blessed assurance,
the peace of who you are...

I will not ask you
to be the still point in my churning world
for even now you are nothing less than this
as you always have been
and always will be...

But I do ask you, beg you, to draw me in
to give me a taste of your stillness,
a thirst for your stillness,
a lust for that stillness found only
in you,
in your presence, in your breath,
in your arms and in your heart:
that stillness found only in you
who are the stillness
we were all created to seek...

Slow me down, Lord,
slower and slower and slower
until I am still in you...

Simplify me and my life
as I seek the stillness you are,
until I lose myself in your stillness,
until my restless soul
finds its rest in you,
the still point of the turning world...

Amen.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

From Burnt Norton, the first of The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.