Time to linger

In the monastic tradition, statio is the practice of stopping one thing before beginning another.  It is the acknowledgment that in the space of transition and threshold is a sacred dimension, a holy pause full of possibility.  This place between is a place of stillness, where we let go of what came before and prepare ourselves to enter fully into what comes next.

 

Statio calls us to a sense of reverence for slowness, for mindfulness, and for the fertile dark spaces between our goals where we can pause and center ourselves, and listen.  We can open up a space for God to work.

                               Christine Valters Paintner

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I sit in the darkness

In that in-between moment

Between night and day

 

in this place of stillness I am at first assailed

by thoughts that come unbidden

of things undone

of things to be done

 

feelings too lurk around the threshold

regrets and fears

a fleeting sense of joy

 

and still I sit

reluctant to step across the threshold

into what is next

 

it is time to linger

to wait upon the Lord

 

it is time to prepare

to cross into God’s new thing

it is time to let go of those things that haunt and hinder

it is time to let love ripple through the deep waters of my soul

it is time to cling to the Divine

 

what is on the other side of the threshold

what will this day bring?

what will the days ahead bring?

what is unfolding in history, as stock markets rise and fall

and elections loom?

what dark forces lurk?  what opportunities lie ahead?

 

this darkness stillness is noisy

and yet I sit

and seek Sacred Presence

 

“Christ with me, Christ before me,

Christ behind me, Christ in me,

Christ under me, Christ over me,

Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me,

Christ in lying down, Christ in sitting, Christ in rising up” (The Deer’s Cry)

 

I breathe in

I breathe out

and then I step

 

into this new day