In honor of the day after Easter, when we can hear only the echo of the trumpets and alleluias; when we have to leave the mountains and return to the valleys; when we’re not sure what lies ahead and are tempted to cling to the past; I am posting a poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that reminds us God is in charge of the timing:

Trust in the Slow Work of God

Above all, trust in the slow work of God

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.  And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stage of instability –

and that it may take a very long time.  And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.  Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.  Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.  Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955)

(with thanks to Sylvia Bradfield+Mitchell for first giving me this poem)