Sunday, December 12

Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
—Proverbs 23:18

Advent

Two hundred yards from shore,
we sit becalmed,
our open boat bobbing like
the grinning cormorants just off the foredeck.
Taking flight, they heave
their gleaming bodies rising from the channel,
sailing one by one into
the silent evening.
And we are now alone.
In this merging of sky and sea,
in this motionless magenta,
we must wait,
wait for the shifting of the wind,
the rising tide,
the alignment of stars.
Stalled between Then and Now,
between the certainty of the searing Gulf Coast sun
and the merest hint of winter,
we are poised on the possibility of something
yet to come.
December night hangs around our shoulders,
humid and heavy as seaweed,
and in the half-light
we are silhouettes,
shadows hunched against approaching chill.
Are we simply drifting toward some ancient fear,
the edge of unexplored earth,
or are we moving imperceptibly toward dawn
and birth?

O God, the future seems so uncertain, but I am trusting you to accompany me to the edge of the earth, and beyond.

These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2004.