thought of the day from Vanessa Walrath

Clouds change gracefully, smoothly, whirling and reaching, quietly becoming. It isn't slow, but it certainly isn't quick, requiring the observer's stillness, slowed breathing, patience. I forget to wait for clouds.

I move quickly, desperately, hoping if I cram enough in, or think I'm busy, I won't have to be quiet and feel the void in my soul. I think somehow that Christians shouldn't ache.

But when clouds change, some break apart, slowly disintegrating as they reach toward an unseen goal. Painfully, quietly, beautifully slow.

I don't want to live there. I don't understand the ache, don't want to allow the gentle breakdown, would rather be excessively busy or tremendously slothful so as to avoid the quiet truth: I'm breaking apart and it hurts.

My future as so many dreams, ideals, and plans does not make sense any more. And I'm gently coming undone. And my dreams and visions and thoughts of myself are whirling slowly, gracefully out of reach even as I am moving, being moved, toward an Unseen Goal at a snail-like, cloud-like pace.

But I have a small inkling, just a nudge, a tiny conviction, really, that the change is good. To be a single, solitary, naked soul, precariously aware of her short-comings, stripped of her defining accolades and visions, is to be a soul aching for and painfully in need of Something Other. And perhaps that's just what I need to be.