Come and Find the Quiet Center

Text Shirley Erena Murray

Music B.F. White (BEECH SPRING)

Come and find the quiet center in the crowded life we lead,

            Find the room for hope to enter,

            Find the frame where we are freed:

Clear the chaos and the clutter.

            Clear our eyes that we can see

                        all the things that really matter,

            Be at peace, and simply be.

Silence is a friend who claims us,

            Cools the heat and slows the pace,

God it is who speaks and names us,

            Knows our being, touches base,

            Making space within our thinking,

            Lifting shades to show the sun,

            Raising courage when were shrinking,

            Finding scope for faith begun.

In the Spirit let us travel, open to each others pain,

            Let our loves and fears unravel,

            Celebrate the space we gain:

There's a place for deepest dreaming,

            There's a time for hearts to care,

In the Spirits lively scheming

there is always room to spare.

 Wait

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait!"

"'Wait?', you say, wait!" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By FAITH I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

"My future and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to WAIT?
I'm needing a 'yes,' a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"And Lord, you promised that if we believe
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply!"

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."
So, I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting. . ..for what?"

He seemed then to kneel and His eyes wept with mine,
And he tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.
All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want--but, you wouldn't know ME.

"You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint;
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint;
You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there;
You'd not know the joy of resting in me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.

"You'd never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of my Spirit descends like a dove;
You'd know that I give and I save. . .(for a start),
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of my heart.

"The glow of my comfort late into the night.
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked
Of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that 'My grace is sufficient for thee.'
Yes, your dreams for your loved ones overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss! if I lost what I'm doing in you!

"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
THAT THE GREATEST OF GIFTS IS TO GET TO KNOW ME.
And though oft may my answers seem terribly late,
My wisest of answers is still but to WAIT."

~Author Russell Kelfer ~

”

Who Am I? (from "Letters and Papers from Prison")

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (18 July 1944)

Who am I? They often tell me

I step from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly

like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I talk to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bear the days of misfortune

Equably, smilingly, proudly,

like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I know of myself,

restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,

tossing in expectation of great events,

powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, though knowest, O God, I am thine.