Listen

Somehow, I must sit to listen.
Standing implies the readiness for action,
for the executing of the will.
To hear You, I must sit down and calm down.

The magpie mind chatters.
It doesn't know about stopping.
How helpless I feel in its automatic firing,
its busy babbling.
It is impossible to hear You
as long as I am full of sound.

I turn this helpless prayer toward You.
Help me to be quiet, to sit here
...slowly unknowing everything,
becoming dark, becoming yielding...
just sitting.

Here, without will, let me becoming willing.
Here, without concepts, help me to know.
Here, without doing, turn me toward usefulness.

Let my heart find its ears in You.
Let the countless cells of my body open in order to listen,
Let my being come into Your presence
and experience the sound of Your light.

- Gunilla Norris