My middle-aged brain is not so nimble anymore
And cranking out an academic paper on Ecclesiology renders it exhausted.
Slow down, it cries
I need time to think
Think?
“Think” is all I’ve done, I tell it.
Right?
I’ve written words, words, words about the “Existence, Function, and Meaning of the Ecclesia”
(translation into everyday language: “the Church: what should it really be?”)
But the finger tapping and anxious scanning of the screen — do the sentences flow, are the paragraphs ordered well? — is something less than real thinking.
Paramount is the concern to make some kind of sense —
And so the listening-thinking I need
Has not yet happened.
Is this why today, after the paper is completed and turned in,
my brain is making slow, unhurried connections?
— from the audio novel I listened to on commutes about the cantankerous widower who was gently moved from grief to life by his interfering, kind-hearted neighbors
To all that reading on the Church being wide and deep;
diverse yet unified; sanctified and sanctifying;
Holy but flawed,
And then to my discussions with my husband about community development and racial reconciliation and the bothersome goodness of our living room and yard being chock-full of neighbor children —
so many hard-beautiful connections!
and rather than being driven to write about them,
This day I simply want to let them soak into my soul,
To weep, to mourn the kingdom life that should be but isn’t,
To — at the same time — yearn and long and hope
And be,
In grief and gratitude and prayer and, yes, thinking.
Thy kingdom come, heavenly Father,
Thy kingdom come.
