For the second week running I was late to faculty devotions this morning. Appalling, really, to enter the room and walk across it to the empty chair, advertising my tardiness to a roomful of people that I, as yet, barely know. And my only excuse, were they asking for one, would be Extreme Fatigue and an Unbelievable Reluctance to get out of bed.
But no one was asking.
So I found my seat not far from John, my boss, who as I entered finished reading some passage of scripture. I am only four minutes late, I wanted to say, because they were all, I was sure, checking their watches. Last week it was more than ten minutes. Do improvements count?
John began to read poetry.
They were all poems about the Sabbath, and rest, and I don’t remember a single line from a single poem. But as I listened I realized it is bare branches I am longing for, the clarity of somewhere North, a lack of this pervasive heat that always seems to suffocate the sky.
Yes, I realized. I am wanting lines these days, crooked or straight, but lines nonetheless. Lines uncluttered and simple, and muted colors, please. I am wanting what is stark and spare, clean and empty, and silence in which to contemplate it.
The poems were over; the prayer requests began. And for the second time before eight a.m. today I was appalled—appalled at struggles and needs beyond my comprehension: fathers and children both on their deathbeds, grieving parents who, I am sure, could make good use of a bare branch or two, of a view unimpeded, of an expanse of sky broad and rich and deep.
And then the prayers came, and it was one of those grieving parents praying, praying a simple line of words more true than anything I’ve heard in a long time: We praise You because You are magnificent, and You are good, and Your goodness is enough.
Is this the line for me, in my small need? In my loneliness in this new job, in the perpetually crowded state of my mind, in the noise of too many freshman bodies in a room that is far too small? Leaves of paper clutter my desk, sheaves that I have evaluated with care, and commented on; after class today, there will be more still.
And the students themselves: I have loved them in advance, and prayed for them. They have, perhaps, enjoyed the grace I carry for students I taught in the past; I think I have applied remembered enjoyment of them to these who were, just recently, only an idea.
Now they are Real People.
It is a process, this: getting to know new people, and letting them get to know you.
And then it was off to class with me, and I grasped that bare branch of Sam’s prayer as I walked to my classroom. The bark of that branch is rough and worn, new and familiar and, sometimes, so high. Too high, almost, to reach. But it is, I remember, the Very Thing I long for: Praise You. Praise You. Praise.
