God is in the death

God is in the death.  Neither a genie nor a life insurance policy.  God is in both the living and the dying.  You and I don’t have to choose, we don’t have to pretend that we are not crushed to the ground with grief when we are.  We don’t have to lie about our fears, insecurities, and despair.  We don’t have to rush to the light when the darkness is safely holding our tears, our sorrow, our anguish. We can hang out with ourselves, our posse, our Higher Power (if we have one) in between life and death.  We can hover there knowing in the liminal space there are gifts for us in between the now and the now yet

          Jacqui Lewis, Fierce Love

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I remember as a child

I was always anxious for Easter to arrive

I loved the hunts for the gaily colored eggs

scattered around our huge yard

 

I loved the chocolate

(for easter was one of the few times we got candy)

seeing my mother and sister dressed up

hearing the songs

and the story

 

ah, the story

of victory

light over darkness

life over death

do not be afraid

why are you weeping

 

we are always anxious for Easter

for its resolution and its victory

 

and yet this is not an easter world

this is a world stuck on Good Friday

mired in the bleak emptiness of Saturday

when love appeared dead

 

caught in the great silence

the great absence

 

we sometimes forget

I think

 

Love was on the cross

Love was in the tomb

Love was there in the long silence that

seemed to stretch on forever (until the first day of the week)

 

that God (Love) is in the chaos, and pain, and death

love is standing in the rubble of Mariupol

love is in the cancer ward

love is in the anxious hearts of that watch the planet die

 

Love does not magically end authoritarianism

or banish greed

love does not take away the fear or the pain

but love stays

 

death is hard

life is at times unbearably difficult

we are left beaten

and breathless

 

but love stays

and we walk

painfully at times

hopefully at times

left foot, right foot, left foot

 

toward life