For Peace Comes Dropping Slow....

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; 

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

--W.B. Yeats--the Lake Isle of Innisfree

On this cold, snowy day in a New England that, is really taunting

us with the hope of spring then cruelly dashing our hopes, I found

this lovely poem by W.B.Yeats that matched my longing and what

I have been meditating upon.

Thank God that we can pray in all conditions and that God

accepts prayers from harried, hurried hearts as well as peaceful

ones but what I want to address is the place of praying from

a deeply peaceful heart: one of life's richest pleasures.

Yeats describes his longing to go to his little lakeside

cabin and so, he "shall have some peace there, for peace

comes dropping slow."  Indeed!

There is a certain gift of peace that God gives to us

when we are in over our heads and know that our

help comes from God alone. This is a precious

gift. But there is also a peace that we cultivate

in our hearts in order to hear the gentle and

sweet voice of God in every nuance.  This

peace is something we apply ourselves to, cultivate,

nurture, even sacrifice for: it is deep inner peace

and calm and Yeats speaks the truth when he

says it "comes dropping slowly."

My Lent has been a feeble and often failed

attempt to put myself aside and seek God but

what I do know is that I know I was heading for

that deep peace, that totally tranquil place within,

that cannot be come to overnight, cannot be

rushed,  and which has no earthly substitute.

I remember my country childhood, of a completely

different era, one where there was long and deep

lakes of quietude where all one heard for hours was

the sounds of robins, sparrows, peepers and crickets and the soft rustle

of willow and pine trees. Even as a child it is those

moments I remember most vividly and cherish most

deeply.  No one had yet told me the right words about

God  but I felt Him still, before I was formally introduced.

Our lives our so hurried, so rushed, and there is that

primitive if not biblical urge that calls us to slow down

into peace and which we ignore at our very peril. There are

some things that cannot be heard until we are absolutely

quiet inside. There are some truths that won't come to

us until silence reigns in our inner man and the Voice

of our Beloved can speak without the voices of a

million lesser things, madmen all,  interrupting. 

This, if you hadn't noticed, takes a long time. It is not a meander on

a country road, not knowing where you are going

that takes you there, but a deliberate determination

to come to quiet. The irony is that we cannot quiet

ourselves completely, we can only go so far and

the rest, as always and in all things, is grace.

It is worth, without a doubt, every minute.

Let us walk down the road toward that quiet

cabin in our hearts, so that "peace can drop upon

us slow," and there wait for our Lord to speak
in the "heart's deep core" 

If we can accomplish that this Lent, we will

have done well.

photo taken near Jacksonville, Vermont