Daily Worship

Contemplation

November 28, 2016 0 2

Isaiah 30:15

“Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me.”
(The Message)

In the early 1980s, while I was a student in Edinburgh, a friend let me hear an album of little known Norwegian jazz singer who had recently played in the city. One particular track of her vulnerable solo voice and liquid piano accompaniment caught me unawares and has stayed with me since. It talks of wanting a day to myself…locking the door… nobody asking for my time. Exquisitely beautiful but at that time, in my opinion, wishful and selfish thinking in contrast to the life I was leading and the life I expected to lead. Surely I was going to trailblaze my way through the years in whatever faith tasks or ventures I was called to?

 

However within a decade or so, in 1992, I had to leave fulltime work because of the gradual realisation that a diagnosis of ME , or chronic fatigue, was accurate. As a sign language interpreter on the cusp of qualifying, this was a professional death knell in my head. Yet from there, the deeper and more remarkable journey began, internal and external. The script within that we are only worth to God what we can do for Him had to be unwritten: the realisation that I was – and am – utterly loved by the Father, irrespective of what I can or can’t do for Him was something which took a lot of unpicking. I hadn’t heard a lot about that in church: now, in healthier days, I’m not sure that much has changed.

 

This song became an unexpected comfort in my new unbusy world. It gave permission to need this necessary space and, eventually, grow to want it too. I never quite wanted to talk to my flowers but I learned the slow days were not a failure. A new identity indeed.

 

Externally, what followed over the next two decades was a gradual return to “enough” strength for part-time work and also, with great support from friends and family, to have two sons. I am so aware that all of this is gift.

However now I choose to have a day on my own: the greater reality of God’s love for me is in that still place and I am richer for the enforced stillness my life has required. 

 

 

Prayer

 

Father, I have learned that You meet us in the silences, in our uselessness, and in our lack of worth which You transform into intimacy and assurance of Your love. /

 

Be with those whose lives have not turned out as they had hoped – and for those who feel second best because of this.
For those for whom age or health has diminished the person they believed themselves to be: Father, be close to them in their doubts.

 

You could not love us more. This is the reality of the grace of Your gift of Jesus. Amen.

 

 

Lyrics:

 

Contemplation

I want to have a day on my own.

I would lock the door, 

Let nobody in – except the sunshine.

Talk to my flowers, answer no phone calls

Read some nice poetry.

Nobody asking for my time,

It’s peace around me. 

 

I want to have a day on my own.

Do as I wish – all alone.

All alone. All alone. All alone.

 

It Don’t Come Easy  Radka Toneff 

Verve 843 413 -2

Recorded 1979, Oslo