Bench-warming

homelessness
wandering
self-absorbed
not going to sit still
glad to have the chance to drive seventy miles an hour during the early stages of inclement weather, a place to go, a reason to do something
because doing nothing just hurts...

I was given a little miracle yesterday, behaving less than exemplary...and crying out, like the persistent woman with the judge.
"Give me something. I need something."
But what, I had no clue.
And the patient one, the calm one...
Found an answer of sorts
Because
My heart stopped hurting
for just a moment.
Like striking a match, but not as bright
Like a shine of light so small as a grain of sand
was just enough
to ease the pain
of emptiness

"Get used to emptiness"
"But I don't want to,
I want to be full"

And then
Without know
Or thinking
There it was
An answered prayer

"Give me emptiness"
and there it was
No one told me it was going to hurt
No one warned me
about the cost
of emptiness.

Never knew how full I was
of myself
until it wasn't there.

Not really humility yet
Just...nothing.

I recall an old Star Trek episode from the 60s:
McCoy: "It's hard to believe that a man could die of loneliness." 
Back then, maybe, they didn't know that was true.
Even a tormentor is better than emptiness
And emptiness, true emptiness is the only real hell.
Ice. So cold that nothing happens. Ever.
That is emptiness.
Dante understood.

So bench-warming was not an appealing thought.
My name is Cynthia Mary.  I am a great warrior. I do not sit. Ever.
"Be still and know that I am God."
I know You are God.
Now let me be.
Busy.
"Be still and know that I am God."
Do you want to argue with me? 
Still implies nothing. Nothing implies death.
Uncreating would even be something compared to nothing.

In the Swamps of Sadness,
The great turtle, Moira,
had been alone so long
That Nothing seemed like a good idea.
(cf. The Never-Ending Story)

I don't want Nothing.
I don't want to sit
And I don't want to wait.

The priest bossed me around this morning.
Told me which cup to use, speaking in a bossy voice
"No one talks to me like that." I retorted.
"But you. I'll let you (and what I don't say is, "you belong to God")
And I will bend to the one who has given up everything
to do the best thing.
That one, I will trust, even in small things.
So, if that is true...
I have to listen to the one who said, "Sit."

And I realize how afraid I am of Nothing.
How hell, for me, is not doing.
To sit, and let someone wash my feet...
is one level of hell.
To just sit, without even waiting...
is fine, if I choose to do it.
Because I also choose when to stop.

And then, it dawns on me---oh, stupid, dense, slow me...
That my prayer life has only just begun.

To submit to love, to let it happen to me...
is terrifying.
To think I matter, simply because I exist
I matter, even if I don't do anything...
this is beyond impossible to grasp.

Now...look at the day...and there it is staring at me. While I write, I have unconsciously turned on Turner Classic Movies...and the movie is "Wait Until Dark"...a play I worked on in high school.
Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman being led down a particular path by evil men...and she has just realized she has been tricked...so she begins to shatter any available light to save her from the "bad people."  In the dark, she knows how to survive.  Those who do not know how to survive in the dark will be beaten by it.
Those who do not know how to be still will be beaten by stillness.
So now I have to sit. So I can learn how to sit.

"When will I be a real girl?" I ask God.
"Soon," God says. "Soon."
"Be still and know that I am God."