Eucharist comes before the miracle.

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in Him.  Psalm 62:6

Remember Your word to Your servant, because You have given me hope.   This is my comfort in my trouble, that Your promise gives me life.     Psalm 119:49–50

Far overhead beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music.

For what you see and hear depends a good deal from where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that very often you succeed. He (Uncle Andrew) soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. Such a horrid, bloodthirsty din of hungry and angry brutes he had never heard in his life. If they want to throw away their own lives, that’s their business. But what about me? They don’t seem to think of that. No one ever thinks of me.

So yesterday afternoon Everette and I practiced the word “splashing.” She was in her little swimming pool with an odd collection of small cups, a pail for pouring on her belly, a rag for scrubbing and even a paintbrush. And she would splash hard, and I would say the word “splashing,” and then she would splash again. And we had been bending our necks like a giraffe and pounding our chests like a gorilla and waving our arms like a monkey all afternoon. 

And I am in a world of silence. Except for the splashing of water on the plants as I water. Which gives me a great opportunity to choose where to stand. And I can choose to stand under the blue veil of stars singing a pure, cold, difficult song. Or not.

And the ground was bubbling up with life and dark firs and primroses while Polly listened to His song, and heard the things He was making up and then looking around and seeing them, she had no time to be afraid. 

But Uncle Andrew wanted to creep away to a rat’s hole.

So like Miss Courage-of-a-Wild-Boar Everette and Miss No-Time-to-Be-Afraid Polly I want to notice what He is about. Eucharist always precedes the miracle.  

And let me add to the list on my computer desktop, the list of 1000 gifts: The abundant flowers on the little desk, the birthday note on orange construction paper, the friends who arrived with crackers and veggies and hummus and Brie with pomegranate seeds and prayers, cups of dense Nescafe, the metallic spin of the air conditioner, Mary Beth’s charcoal sketches of the desert, long walks around Reid Park, a bag of finch seed strung outside the window, fresh new grass pushing up through hard desert dirt that needs a little extra watering, and Far away, down near the horizon, the sky began to turn grey. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir.

Truly, my hope is in Him.