slow

I’m making yogurt tonight.

Or perhaps more accurately at the moment, it’s making itself. This afternoon I scalded a half gallon of whole milk, cooled it slightly, and swirled in a little plain yogurt. The resulting mixture is now to be found in two clean jars, tightly capped, immersed in a pot of warm water, swathed in a couple thick towels — and slowly thickening, one hopes, into something very close to the two-liter jugs of rich, real yogurt I buy in Jerusalem. But I won’t know for sure until tomorrow morning.

A lot of things are happening right now. Slow, quiet things that are developing even more imperceptibly than the yogurt on my kitchen counter.

This week, I became rewoven into life at home by just a few more strands. I tried to acclimate my sun-warmed bones to almost-autumn weather. Will I manage it before it’s time to return to the Mediterranean? Hard to tell: it takes a lot of walks outside to reset my internal thermometer.

This week, I turned a sermon into nearly nine pages of text, one keystroke at a time, and reshaped another chunk of someone else’s words into what someday may become a published book. I lived a few more days, and chose (sometimes falteringly, sometimes resoundingly) to trust God on each of them. I was surprised by how quickly I lost and had to regain that trust — and how much He could do in me, anyway.

This week, I grew several friendships, both near and far, by just one or two (or five) more conversations. And I heard more about a friend’s unfolding miracle. It’s not my miracle, but it’s for me, nonetheless, because I’m one of those who dared to ask (not really expecting it would ever come). But from the sidelines I see him taking a risk, and her choosing to trust him, and both with their eyes, like children taking wobbly first steps, on their Abba-in-heaven. And I’m pretty sure that He is beaming with joy.

How will it end? I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell.

I keep smiling at the three babies in my home-congregation. With a little peekaboo added, that peculiarly intense baby-stare eventually melts into eye-twinkles, then half-smiles, then grins.

Perhaps they’ll learn to know me; who knows? It takes time to win a child’s trust.

How’s life right now? It’s quiet. It’s slow. And it’s very good.