My previous post below shares a link to my recent reflections on the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. Typically, my blog picks up speed during the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter. But, once Easter passes the number blog posts declines rapidly, at times lying dormant or going into hibernation. Maybe this season of Ordinary Time will be different?? Hmmmm…we’ll see.
I recently purchased the Kindle version of a new book on Ordinary Time, At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time by Sarah Arthur. To read a review of the book, click here. I am loving the book. Already I am finding the passages of poetry, prayers, fiction, and scripture shaping my posture and attentiveness in Ordinary Time.
This morning I enjoyed reading and taking time to sit with the below poem by Enuma Okoro included in the section themed, “In the Stillness.” I thought I would pass it on.
Passing Ordinary Time
Enuma Okoro
It is a hard art to learn,
catching quiet
by palms raised
cupped in
air shifting location
here and there like
trying to guess the pattern of falling leaves,
and hoping to feel
the soft descent of moments
when silence slips
between sounds.
This ordinary time is
gifted with days,
weeks of mundane grace
routinely following the liturgy
of hours anticipating creation
tuning its prayer and praise to the
rhythms of incarnate love.
I am used to the uproar,
the Holy drama,
the appetite's gnarled discord
of fasting and feasting on borrowed, time,
the knocking of angels,
the blubbering piety of waiting,
appointed seasons for guild and grief, tears of joy and disbelief,
the birth of miracles, the passion of virgins,
the mourning of a love so divine.
This ordinary time is
gifted in its quiet, marked passing
Christ slips about
calling and baptizing,
sending and affirming,
pour his Spirit like water
into broken cisterns,
sealing cracks and filtering our senses,
that we may savor the foolish
simplicity of his grace.
