Words

Words have left me, and I feel deserted.  I used to have words [pre-COVID] to describe all the things.  In the hollow of my mind, I would sit, unpacking and sorting words until I found the right ones to explain all the feelings and experiences of my life.   I used words to make sense of things. But I have become mute and numb.  I wander the hallways of my mind, running after all the words that have run away from me and spilt out all over the place.  I pick them up one by one and carry them until my arms are full, my back aches, my pockets burst, and I can’t fit them anywhere.  But I cannot fit them on white pages in orderly sentences.

There is, of course, an abundance of words but they don’t make sense together.  This task of sorting this experience is confounding. I feel all the words but can’t decide which ones belong and which ones don’t. Because all of the words are relevant right now and yet none of them are sufficient.

I watch my children sort toys into colours and beads into boxes and all treasures into containers. But I cannot describe.  And I cannot sort.  And I cannot make sense of the feelings and experiences of this time, this season, this land of the ‘unprecedented.’ 

How does one put words to all of this? In place of words, I have only pangs.  It’s like a hand strumming on strings that are all vibrating, each string with it’s own pitch and tone, sometimes melodious and sometimes dissonant. All of the strings are echoing in the hollow behind and it’s all making so much noise. What is the song? What is the melody? I cannot pick it out.

I am at all times pulled taut and divided.  I am halved and hollowed.  I am expanded and elated.  I am confident and confused.  I am excited and daunted.  I am living in the fulfilled longings of yesterday and the unfulfilled longings of tomorrow at the same time.  Contented and confronted.  Expressive and exposed.  Fatigued and enriched.  Contrasts and contradiction abound and I am speechless.

In case you are wondering why words have evaded over these last months on my blog, that is why.  Instead of words, I have lost myself in west-coast landscapes, reminding me how small I’ve always been, and how the world has never needed me to describe it to go on anyways.  And I have escaped from words to find connections with others. I need relationships to pull me out of my inner angst and be present with real people in real-time.

But more and more I realize I just need an oasis at the foot of my Savior who doesn’t need me to form words but to rest. He doesn’t need me to explain how all this feels for Him to understand. He doesn’t need me to make sense of, brace myself for or be enough for what’s to come but to just be still.

Where do you go in this time to find your centre right now?