The Quiet Knowing

In the hush before dawn when the world still dreams,  

a man kneels on ordinary earth,  

no incense curling, no bells tolling bronze,  

no polished phrases marching in regimented rows.  

He does not count syllables like coins  

to purchase heaven's ear,  

nor wind long threads of words  

hoping length will snare the divine.  

The pagans rise at altars carved from fear,  

their voices piling phrase on phrase  

like stones heaped against a flood.  

They speak the same petition hour after hour,  

as though the heart of God were deaf  

or distant, or easily wearied,  

as though abundance of speech  

could force a door that mercy keeps ajar.  

They chant until their tongues grow dry,  

believing quantity is currency,  

that clamor earns an audience,  

that repetition itself becomes the plea.  

But Jesus turned from such loud marketplaces of prayer  

and walked into the silence of a closed room,  

the door shut softly against the world's din.  

There, in the plain light of being known,  

He spoke few words, yet every syllable carried home.  

Our Father. Simple. Direct.  

A child's hand reaching through the dark.  

No need to multiply the name,  

no frantic echo to prove devotion's depth.  

The Father sees. The Father hears  

before the first breath shapes the longing.  

What need have we of multiplied petitions  

when love already runs ahead of speech?  

The heart's true cry is single,  

a sparrow falling, a widow's mite,  

a tax collector's glance toward the floor.  

These require no elaboration,  

no scaffolding of rhetoric,  

no ritual rehearsal to be heard.  

God does not tally repetitions  

nor measure devotion by decibels.  

He knows the need before it finds a name,  

perceives the ache beneath the armored vow,  

the hidden hunger folded in the boast.  

So let the prayer be spare,  

a single arrow loosed into the sky  

rather than a volley that darkens heaven.  

Let it rise like smoke from quiet embers,  

not a storm of words whipped into frenzy.  

In the stillness between one breath and the next  

the Father waits—not impatient, not remote—  

but intimate as pulse, as marrow,  

knowing already what the tongue stumbles toward.  

Cease the babble, then.  

Lay down the heavy rosary of rote.  

Trust that silence also speaks  

when it is filled with presence, not performance.  

The one who fashioned galaxies from thought  

does not require our eloquence to understand.  

He listens to the spaces between our sentences,  

to what we dare not say aloud,  

to the unsaid yes that trembles underneath.  

In that quiet knowing  

the soul finds rest at last.  

No longer beggar rattling coins of speech,  

but child returning home  

to arms already open,  

to a Father who has never waited  

for the right arrangement of words  

to love.  

So pray simply.  

Pray once, and deeply.  

Then trust the silence that follows—  

it is not emptiness,  

but the sound of being heard.