I’m thinking how so much so often comes of showing up, comes of being willing to arrive, regardless, as our several mute anxieties subside, and now I startle, blinking—so much so
that I am for the short term almost wide awake— and see a bit more clearly how this willingness or that can make of the confusion yet another likely scene, make of the troubled,
packed interior a zone of calm, which calm avails momentarily a glimpse to mark among so many frank, unlikely revelations that I continue to observe that I am blinking still.
But what was I to make of it? What of it beyond for instance a sudden, chance recognition of a likely other? The God, presumably, will carry on, will fetch me from affection to affection,
and some can seem, immediately, longstanding, and some suggest again how both widespread and pervasive might become this giddy gratitude I recognize, if all would be sufficiently awakened.
—Scott Cairns is the author most recently of The End of Suffering (Paraclete Press).
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
