It seemed like a small moment, just a few weeks ago. In a rather unglamorous place—my dark, damp basement. I was doing the wash, removing the lint from the dryer screen. As I peeled off the colorful bits of fuzz, a voice came out of the blue: "What are you thinking about right now?" The question seemed curiously out of place—and even a little pushy. Like somebody sitting next to you on the airplane, wanting to start up a conversation when you'd prefer to doze. But because it was so loud and clear and insistent, I stopped what I was doing.
"Well," I thought. "Let's see. Just now I was wondering about how to get one of my daughter's teachers to be less intimidating. And a second before that, I was lamenting the fact that writing can be such a lonely profession. And before that, I think it was the state of the world . . . ." I stopped. It was pretty obvious that my thoughts were a laundry list of complaints, micromanaging maneuvers, and "what ifs." Grumpy at being exposed, I stuffed the clothes into the dryer, and went upstairs. But all afternoon I kept coming back to that moment down in the basement.
I got to thinking about how often I'd pondered the instruction in the Bible to "pray without ceasing." I Thess. 5:17. Wow. Ceaseless prayer. That, to me, had always seemed like an impossibly tall order. I began to consider those untethered fragments in one's day, where we have the space to ruminate, daydream, mull, and worry (no wonder they call it "down time"). But instantly a statement from Science and Health came to mind: "The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!" Science and Health, p. 520. The vigor and conviction of that statement made me know the moment downstairs was pointing to something much bigger. That this "majesty" and "glory" that grow out of infinite Love do not include jumping ahead to next week's teacher's conference or dancing the tango of writer angst, or bemoaning the state of the world.
