Abide

"Abide" is a word like a thoughtless child, aware only tangentially of the minutes and seconds that weigh on the rest of us like sandbags.

Abide.

A filled-to-the-brim word (rich as plum cake with its nuance of meaning), more special than "live" (everyday frock like hope, love, and hate, that so often said, say nothing), less bare than "exist", but dry and archane on the tongue, like a antique key sliding into a rusted lock, long unused. It has a monastic heedlessness for the passage of time of the anticipation of future events. It savors of contentment in this moment, and in the next, each orderly and in its turn. An exile cannot abide, for she hopes too much in a receding future, and the place of her rest is a prison. A haunting spirit (or the mortals most like them) cannot abide, lingering in the bright, brief flame, the lasting ash, of regret, and all things too past for opacity. And the guilty unforgiven, having no peace in himself , is shut out from abiding as from a walled garden.

To abide requires the rhythmic environment of eternity. It requires God (or a child). These abide without effort, by natural outflow, and their joy in abiding is a great, inviting love fest.

"Abide in me."

Be at home in all places and circumstances.

"Let my word abide in you."

Be replete. Find unwithered, incorruptible satisfaction .