WATCHING FOR SHADOWS

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I reflected a few posts ago on a poem of Rilke's. I've been reflecting on the following lines, the first half of another poem (I,45) from the same volume.

You come and go. The doors swing closed

Rilke by a Window - G. Van de Perre

ever more gently, almost without a shudder.
Of all who move through the quiet houses,
you are the quietest.

We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading
and makes it glow. For all things
sing you: at times
we just hear them more clearly.

I love the image,
"We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading
and makes it glow."

The first time I read those lines I smiled and practically shouted to myself, "Yes! Yes! This has been happening to me for months!" (In fact, I scribbled my reaction in ther margin of the book.) As a Benedictine, I'm supposed to be "seeking God" all the time; and as so often happens, the insights come when I realize that it's God that's doing the seeking more than I. I sitting in my chair reflecting on a gospel passage when suddenly a gentle but distinct shadow falls over the page and makes it glow. Along with the shadow comes a voice: "Are you getting the point of these words? They're about you and what you're going through right now." And what's my reaction? Well, Rilke's observation, sadly, is often close to the mark:   "We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up."

These line from a poem written a hundred years ago are a good reminder, a poiinted one, that I need to stop taking for granted the divine shadows and the glowing light that at times springs unexpected from the page in front of me.

The last three lines from the excerpt above also offer a powerful lesson. Following the image of the Spirit making the book glow, he wrote:

For all things
sing you: at times
we just hear them more clearly.

Now, I'm sure that to hear them more clearly is a gift, a grace. But I'm just as sure that God does not shove things down my throat, but rather takes advantage of every opportunity I offer to fill me with grace, light and peace. In other words, I need to cooperate with grace by being, as it were, on the lookout, by listening more carefully for the Lord's singing in my life.

When I visit the first-grade classroom, I can easily hear the Lord's singing there. The hard part comes at other times, in other places, with other people, where the Lord is singing as well, but I'm too preoccupied or obtuse to hear the song clearly. May the Risen Lord help me to recognize the shadows and hear the singing of creation!


There are a couple of comments on this poem on another blog post I came across and which you might want to read.