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pilgrimage | waiting for Godot

Therefore, son of man, prepare for yourself baggage for exile and go into exile by day in their sight; even go into exile from your place to another place in their sight. Perhaps they will understand though they are a rebellious house.Bring your baggage out by day in their sight, as baggage for exile. Then you will go out at evening in their sight, as those going into exile. Dig a hole through the wall in their sight and go out through it. Load the baggage on your shoulder in their sight and carry it out in the dark. -- Ezekiel 12:3-6

 Everything is packed, and like Ezekiel, I've done my packing early. Such is the way of the Mayeuxs. We get ready to take a journey. We plan, we pack, and then we wait ... and wait. You can't leave early, the schedule is set, (in the case of air travel or bus, by someone else) and for this particular journey by foot there are timing concerns as well; it is simply best if I leave toward evening. 

But the human condition is to wait in hope. We sit in constant vigil for the coming of the Lord. He has set watchers over us and He Himself watched over Israel on the night when the angel of death passed through Ægypt slaying all the first borne. Therefore, to the glory of the Lord, we too shall watch ... and wait. Waiting sharpens one's desire for God--the soul is the Bride waiting for the Bridegroom, and the wait makes her hunger and thirst for his presence. Because everything is gift, everything is grace, then there is only so much action the soul can take, to wait, but wait for the Lord and none other, is a state of prayer that everyone should practice for at least fifteen minutes a day. I plan on doing a lot of waiting this trip, especially since I tend to wake long before sunrise, and I won't be able to make much progress without at least Aurora's rosy fingers beginning to shake the stars from the velvet sky. So that will be my time of waiting prayer, my time of longing.


Though not digging any holes through walls like Ezekiel, I will be burning some bridges as I head out this evening. There is some inevitability to that in every journey, every set of goodbyes. Knowing these men, and by God's grace, we shall, however, always keep each other in prayer. There are some people who I've not seen for a long while, but who I hold in prayer, and sometimes I feel as though in some intangible, ineffable way I truly am closer to them than I ever was when physically close to them. This is especially true of those relationships that were mutually detrimental to virtue! Prayer will be about my only connection to anyone for the next twenty-eight days, and I hope that you will occasionally hold me in prayer--you don't have to ask for anything for my sake, God, our Father, knows what we need, but it will be nice to have the company of not only angels and saints in spirit, but friends as well.


Pax.

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