grasped by what we cannot grasp

A walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

        rainer maria rilke 

it's the first sunday of advent. it's finally december.  it's the beginning of the end of the year. it's the beginning of the divine entrance-grace descending- hope and peace and light into the darkness that we all know at some point. 

today at church it was the children's Christmas pageant.  it was large and sweet and apparently overwhelming for zoe who disappeared, then reappeared (and walked on to the stage to ask a question during the performance), then disappeared again.  oh dear. i was trying to manage rose and bryn who were fighting over which knee they could sit on, as we squeezed into a school type chair/desk combo. i was trying to convince bryn (who was supposed to be in the play) to get on stage, and rose (who was not) to sit still.  jude, thankfully, was being pretty good.  half way through when i realized that zoe wasn't coming back- i tried to just settle in and enjoy the performance.  but i was wondering why i hadn't planned better. why i hadn't asked ahead for help.  why i hadn't sat with someone who could have freed me to follow zoe if i needed to.  i was missing mike and realizing how much of a team we are.  how much more smoothly it goes when we do life together. 

when i got home with the three younger ones, i figured zoe'd be sitting on the porch, she wasn't.  i sent the usual text 'please send zoe if you see her',  i got no reply.  so i sat on the porch and soon i heard her whistling.  she was walking up the street, being followed slowly by 'jaja rohbina' an old woman who helps with the sunday school.  bless her.  jaja had reached out.  jaja brought home my little wandering one. i thanked her and she asked if she could please take zoe with her up to the sunday school luncheon, if she could please be around zoe and teach her some memory verses.  

provision.

i wasn't alone with my 4 kids in the chaos of the massive sunday school performance.  i was in community.  and that good shepherd the kids were singing about? he was looking out for my little lost sheep.  he was bringing alongside her a friend. and maybe it's not just a friend for today- maybe it's the beginning of a needed sunday morning friendship- with one who is older and wiser and worn.

there it is.  grasped somehow, by what we can not grasp- by what slips through our hands- by what we may only catch briefly in all it's clarity- but is there, always and forever.