Standing by Gunilla Norris

Standing

by Gunilla Norris

This morning as I put my feet on the floor
Let me remember how many thousands of years
it took for this act to be possible--
The slow and painstaking development
so that a human creature could rise,
could stand on two feet, and then walk.

From the very beginning, from the very first explosion
Your precise and patient love has been creating us.

The wonder is that now my hands are free
even as I walk or run or stand or dance.
The wonder is that now that I am upright,
my eyes can gaze at the ground,
along the ground, and beyond to the horizon.

I know You have made me
and all creatures for Freedom...
an ever-increasing, evolving freedom.
I am filled with awe by this.

It requires that we face the unknown,
that we rise to it.
You are still exploding in us,
and I am scared.
My trust is so small.

But You are near. You are here
even as you have been from the very first.
You are the vast time and space
in which life is happening. You are Life itself
providing us with centuries to become
Your conscious image.

With wonder at what You have entrusted to us,
help me to know that You are both
the ground and the being
apart from which there is nothing.

Help me to stand up
in Your Freedom.