“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.”
Hosea 2:14-15a
Wilderness seasons are a gift from our Father. They’re a time for old images of God to be stripped away. They’re a place for false attachments to be revealed so we can live and love ourselves and one another more honestly. They aren’t meant to be endured so that we return the same way we left; like the Magi who were instructed to return to their country by another route (Matthew 2:12), Holy Spirit leads us into the wilderness to prepare our hearts to step through the door of hope, to step into a new way of being in the world, irrevocably changed by an intimate encounter with Christ.
With the objectivity sometimes only time can give, I can read through old journals and see I have been (and am) in an extended wilderness season. I’ve been so tucked away this strange past year I missed the signs the anticipation of a significant change has been much longer, nearly five years in the making. Vocational, geographic, relational—I don’t know. Nor do I know what to make of one of last year’s mysterious words from the Lord: It’s going to be another year. (What is, Lord? Is this one of those words that is true indefinitely? Is this commentary on my need for patience?!). In any case, I still know deeply my life trajectory is on the brink of dramatic change, to say nothing of the transformational healing Father is graciously working even now.
Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
Psalm 84:3
In the middle of discerning where and what, Holy Cross Monastery’s September newsletter arrived in my inbox with an article on statio, a favorite monastic practice (it shares a root with static, to pause). Statio captures the time between times, those moments throughout your day when you put down one thing to begin another (subtly defying our harried culture of doing everything at once). The practice is meant to encourage you to be present and intentional, to be where you are, and not with one foot on the dock, as it were.
For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
1 John 3:20, MSG
Holy Spirit wanted me to see from that article that statio is also a place, specifically, the room where monks put on their cowls to enter to worship. I’d been listening carefully for what career or city He was leading me to—there was nothing wrong with that. But Father God, knowing my sensitive heart, helped me see the need for a transition place, another wilderness. With affection for the part of me game to follow Jesus wherever, whenever, and with however little notice, Father God helped me see His kindness in His desire to lead me to a dedicated space to grieve 14 years in NYC, 11 years at my church, and 10 years at my company—the many hopes and disappointments of almost half my lifetime. He transitions us definitively, from death to life—even when He ultimately circles us back around to old places, they are not the same because we are not the same in them. Finally it seemed wise to ensure my heart was fully closed to the old life so that I could enter, fully present and worshipfully, into the new.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Matthew 6:8b
I don’t know when or where this statio place is. One opportunity to spend six months at a monastery, apparently glimmering with Holy Spirit’s touch when I first learned of it, has already been deferred to autumn at the earliest. Maybe it too will be another year! In the spirit of The Book of Ruth, though, which illustrates so well the intersection of human initiative and God’s providence, I will be writing to you from Bar Harbor, Maine in May. I wonder if part of the lesson is learning when to seek out the wilderness for myself.
Fire and Whisper 
2 replies on “A Holy Pause”
[…] connotation. Below is the reply that came up in my Spirit, based on something a friend said about statio. It can be read aloud, slowly, as a prayer. I invite you to consider some things Father God likes […]
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[…] some context, I had been sensing a big shift for the longest time: a few years. I’ve written before in this space about some of the other options I was considering, but nothing had coalesced. I went […]
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