A Fallow Season
The Lamp Is Not Out
The house has been louder than the page lately.
Life, with its holy interruptions,
has been knocking hard at the door…
work to finish, people to love,
fires to tend, burdens to carry,
and all the ordinary demands
that somehow become extraordinary
when they arrive all at once.
And so the words have come slower.
The traffic, too.
Fewer footsteps on the porch.
Fewer visitors lingering by the lamp.
Fewer quiet souls wandering in
to see what I have left burning.
I miss that.
Not the numbers, exactly…
though even writers are human enough
to notice an empty room;
but the communion of it.
The unseen conversation.
The sense that something written in solitude
might still find another heart
on the far side of the silence.
But seasons change.
Sometimes the field must lie fallow
not because it is dead,
but because it is gathering strength
beneath the surface.
I have not stopped writing.
I have only been delayed
by the living required
to make the writing true.
So to those still here,
Thank You.
The lamp is not out.
The door is not closed.
The words are coming.
Slower, perhaps.
But, God willing, deeper.
— G. Mitchell Saba
The emptiness is temporary. It will refill later with adjusted busyness. For now, be thankful for the slow times; they're a gift. They give time to do those procrastinated things that have been waiting on the back burner; discover many new interests; perform neglected works of mercy; make better routines; clean out congested places; develop a real prayer life; give folks a break from the old you while you work on a new you. Talk to yourself -which is essentially to God and to your Angel- about things, even right out loud, and you'll never be alone and you'll get good advice, too!