Out of the depths I cry to You!
In your Mercy, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications!
If You should number the times we
stray from You, O Beloved,
who could face You?
Yet You are ever ready to forgive,
that we might be healed.
I wait for You, my soul waits,
and in your Word, I hope;
My soul awaits the Beloved
as one awaits the birth
of a child, or
as one awaits the fulfillment
of their destiny.
Out here in the woods I can think of nothing except God. It is not so much that I think of [God] as I am aware of [God] as I am of the sun and the clouds and the blue sky and the thin cedar trees...engulfed in the simple and lucid actuality of the afternoon — I mean God's afternoon — this sacramental moment of time when the shadows will get longer and longer and one small bird sings quietly in the cedars, one car goes by in the remote distance, and the oak leaves move in the wind.
High up in the summer sky I watch the silent flight of a vulture, and the day goes by in prayer. This solitude confirms my call to solitude. The more I'm in it, the more I love it.