[Taste and see that the Lord is good.]
Should I in activity seek you
Through means of my own doing
Or should I sit in stillness true
And let you do the pursuing?
Should I strain to hear your psalm
Above this age’s anxious din
Or resign myself from the calm
Of hearing your whispering within?
Should I pray with plastic beads
Until my heart and hands are sore
Or perform dry monastic deeds?
Don’t you vain rituals abhor?
Then answered the Desert Fathers,
“Fuge, tace et quiesce.” [1]
And gone were the petty pothers
Which had led me so astray.
[1] “Flee, be silent and rest.”