9/22/2019 0 Comments NightAnd I said to the one who stood at the gate of the year, "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the Unknown." And he replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way." - Minnie Haskins - Last night I was awake for a couple of hours. This is not usual for me, to wake in the middle of the night, and what was even stranger was not being consumed with swirling worries that tend to be kept at bay during the daylight hours but sometimes make their presence known when my conscious defenses are down. I tried to go back to sleep for a while until my rumbling tummy prompted me to quietly creep downstairs for a snack.
I'm not awake in the middle of the night often, but I always appreciate the peaceful stillness of the dark when the world around me is, for the most part, at rest. I especially relish this quiet living in the midst of a city. In the sacred realm, the hours around 3am are considered a time when the veil thins and it is a time to dwell in mystery. As I finished my snack and contented myself to just sit for a bit, I was drawn to a little book on my shelf that I picked up while at seminary and have returned to at various seasons in my life. Macrina Wiederkehr's Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Though the Hours of the Day is a lovely prayer book that guides the reader through the seven Divine Offices or Hours of Prayer that are typically observed by Christian monastic communities around the world. I've prayed many of the hours throughout the book but I don't think I've ever prayed the the Night Watch or vigil before. So last night I spent some time with the antiphons, scripture and prayers of the night watch, guided by the themes of vigilance, deep listening, mystery, silence, surrender, and trust. In light of my own fertility journey, I was particularly drawn to Wiederkehr's words about this hour being one of waiting. Vigils is a time of exquisite beauty. It is a time for waiting and watching under the mantle of mystery. It can be a prayer of waiting without agenda, without urgency. We often wait for things we cannot change. Waiting in itself has the potential of being a prayer of faith. Sometimes we wait for growth. Like a seed resting in the ground, we wait for who we can become. The darkness that surrounds us can be an ointment for our restless spirit. If we do not turn away from this darkness, it has the potential of becoming a nurturing womb for us. Often it is in the dark times of our lives that our eyes are opened, and we see things in new ways (p. 32-33). There is a difference between waiting and keeping vigil. Anxious, fretful, impatient waiting is nothing more than waiting. Waiting with purpose, patience, hope, and love is vigilant waiting. Would that all of our waiting could be a vigil - a watch in the night or in the day hours. So by all means, find a way to make your vigils sacred. Learn the art of holy waiting. Whether you choose, on occasion, to get up in the middle of the night, or whether you make an effort to turn your everyday moments of waiting into sacred vigils rather than impatient pacing, you will be blessed through this spiritual practice (p 34-35). It has taken me some time to accept this in my own fertility journey, but I have come to appreciate the invitation to allow the darkness of not knowing to blanket me. I have come to know and appreciate the potential for transformation that comes from simply waiting. The posture of surrender, when I'm able to embody it, is freeing. While it is still sometimes disappointing and frustrating to not be pregnant yet, I am grateful for the new ways of seeing that have come from this much longer than anticipated time of waiting.
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