The Gift of Air
“If you surrendered to the air you could ride it.” --Toni Morrison
This gift is not the gift we imagined.
We are all in free fall and cannot grasp what used to be. Any rope we have tied comes undone, any floor we have built collapses, and our numbers unravel.
We must leave the nest of easy rescue.
The eagles ride Your winds with certainty that they won’t fall.
Now we must all surrender to the air.
Help us to know that You are the wind.
Help us to surrender to this confusion, this fear-filled change.
Help us to know we must step off the ledge as sure as eaglets do.
We must look into the depths of canyons and not falter.
The childhood of faith is over.
We must remember Your promise that we will fly by faith, that we will mount up into the unknown.
This is not the gift of certainty, or of security, or of absolutes, or of the coziness of superiority, or even of having the answers.
Every moment is a moment of surrender to a home we never knew and a language we don’t understand.
This gift is not the gift we imagined, or the gift we prayed for, but this is the gift of Your wings.
This is the gift of knowing the air.
© Linda Beatrice Brown