We are lonely creatures with aches of wantonness. We sit, we stir, we sigh even as we long to be known – and to know. And yet we find a peculiar reality sits adrift in our longing: we are the insolated and the isolating. When we wince at the pang of being alone, we recoil, curling in around ourselves – and letting no one in.
Tucked inside ourselves, wrapped in a cocoon of longing, there we whimper for someone to come and scoop us up out of our isolation. And as the whimper turns to moaning, we cry for someone to save us – not only from our situation – but from ourselves.
And in this self-perpetuating darkness we hear the call. The call to lift up, to get up, to avert our eyes from self and fix them on Another. The call is confusing; the words, foreign. And still they fall familiar on our aching hearts, though we know not what to do with them.
The call comes not from a nearby neighbor or ready companion. It is not the words of a longed for lover or forgotten friend.
But they are Yours.
We realize, now, even in this carefully crafted night, that the call is Yours, and it is a call to speak. Though we want not Your call – for it did not give us a hand to hold – even as we limp away and purse our eyelids in rebellious dismissal, we cannot escape that prayer is an end to isolation. And Your invitation has been extended.
When we stir from our angst and open our eyes again, would You let our first answer be for the grace to pray. Even as You have taught us.