The many forms of Ready

If Ready were a person, I've met her in a handful of disguises this week alone, in unglamorous human affairs and in moments thinly veiled, their sacred peeking out from beneath the cloth.

Ready.

On the steps of a new church, where we gathered in the glare of sun to hear the word of God, an ancient story told by a pastor in a white robe with Birkenstocks and gray streaked through his sideburns, to an audience of adults and children and one old, white-faced dog. And I, with my heart yawning open, leaning into surprise and mystery and the simplicity of the old made new.  

Ready.

On the bathroom floor, sick twice, and in the doctor's office trying again to come near to answers to four-year questions; willing, finally, to stop dismissing, no matter how small it may seem.

Ready.

Outside a building, drawing in a deep quiet breath and prayer for courage - and inside, beginning to tell my story to a compassionate new stranger, someone to walk with me this journey of healing. 

Ready.

Awakening to the rumbling of emptiness from eyes that have been too lost in life, in thought, in whatever else this summer, to see the Holy presence. The hunger of readiness to see, to slow, to feast. The homesickness of missing sight, missing Christ - in the knotted bark of a tree, the haunting call of a heron, the orchestra of wind and water, the company of wild things, the shadowed face of the moon, the distant stars, the Creator's canvas of sky at dusk. 

Ready.

Come Sunday, my third triathlon ever raced and the weight of Not Ready. Of body not feeling ever ready, with its newer limitations. But more, of heart that seems to be moving on to other things - and has been for a while - while acceptance trails behind.

Ready, she coaxes and consoles, throws her arm around my shoulder and walks beside me in quiet. She is a whisper - "Yes, yes, you can. Yes, yes, it's time." She opens her arms as strangers in welcome, as ones who are never actually strangers in this family of flesh and blood, spirit and water. She is light filtering through shadows, eyes ever fluttering open, the breath of the Spirit falling on my ears through the words of a book and nudging me to deeper life.

Ready. Almost Ready. Not Ready. Ready or Not. All of these.


Originally posted as a link up with Kate and the Five-minute Friday community, to the prompt of "Ready."

However, it also seemed to fit well with the spirit of writing behind Unforced Rhythms, so, well, I suppose I'm double dipping this week :-)