ordering all things sweetly

Fuge, tace, quiesce. The waiting itself is the thing.

Not only does something come if you wait, but it pours over you like a waterfall, like a tidal wave. You wait in all naturalness without expectation or hope, emptied, translucent, and that which comes rocks and topples you; it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind.

- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
“I profess, and to my last breath I shall profess it, that both in body and soul, in everything, whether in prosperity or adversity, you provide for me in the way that is most suitable…with the one and uncreated wisdom, my sweetest God, reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly.”
– from St. Gertrude, a recasting of the ceremony of monastic profession
found in The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris


Out in West Texas, the signs of spring are few and far between, but back in Austin, the mountain laurels and redbuds are in bloom and I'm mostly encouraged that God is ordering all things sweetly. This week he's given me three or four encouraging signs so that I can overlook the one or two discouraging ones and that's reason for expectation, anticipation, hope.