The morning after

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation." — Psalm 62:1

There are mornings after something that feel like the first page of a new week, and this is one. The anniversary was yesterday and it was what it was and this morning is its own morning.

I sat at the table before the sun was fully up. The roses are still there, slightly more open than they were yesterday, and the house was cool in the way it is cool at six in the morning in June before the heat finds its way in. I did not open the Bible. I did not reach for anything. I sat with my hands on the table and I let the quiet be the prayer.

There is a kind of prayer that is just not reaching. Not reaching for the phone, not reaching for the list of things to do, not reaching for the worry that is always there if you want it. Some mornings the prayer is in what you do not do. You sit. You breathe. The morning is wide and empty and you let it be wide and empty and that is the offering.

The fan was on low. A cardinal was going outside, that bright repeating note that sounds like it is trying to get the attention of someone who is not listening. I was listening. I do not know if that is the same as praying, but it is what I had this morning, and I gave it.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.