When someone else writes what you wanted to but didn’t know how.

The little boat
had seen many days at sea.
There was still colour in her paint but her clip had slowed visibly.
The freshness, the eagerness, the vitality had waned.
These days it felt difficult to be a boat –
not natural but laborious.
Things that previously brought joy & life
seemed to painfully elude her.

She needs this harbour time.
Time to dock.
Time to bob in one place & see the same quiet things for a while.
Time to be attended to & not to attend.
A time of harbour rest, of safeness & sameness,
of warming sun, of staring at gulls,
of smelling salty air,
of taking in the gentle clanging & bobbing of other boats,
the occasional sound of a motor, the lines clinking against the masts.

The harbour is where I want to sit.
It’s where I need to sit after an especially busy, intense season.
My soul yearns for a harbour experience of calming sights, smells & sounds.
All my senses need to feel her healing balm.
And all of me needs to know that:
Stillness is progress,
Quiet is impetus,
Solitude is movement.
Soul care is breakthrough.

One day soon I will look past the harbour onto the horizon.
First I will just notice it.
As time passes, I will appreciate anew its grandeur, its vision, its call.
And eventually I will yearn again to travel there on open seas.
For now, Harbour Time is where I renew those soulful yearnings.

“Others went out on the sea in ships…
They saw the works of the Lord,
his wonderful deeds in the deep…
and he guided them to their desired haven.”

Psalm 107:23, 24, 30

 

Thanks, ‘A life of interest’