He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven,
suddenly two people in white robes stood by them.
They said, “People of Galilee,
why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
—Acts 1.9-11
Because sometimes all you can do
is stare into the space where once there was
something you loved.
Because sometimes there’s a gap
between the last step of this journey
and the first step of the next one.
Because grief is the grain
in the pearl of believing.
Because sometimes there’s an empty place
in you that only the right kind of silence can fill.
Because we didn’t get here on our own
but now we’re afraid we might have to.
Because it’s sometimes only empty air
and a vast, insistent silence
where we can hear the voice,
the silent voice, and feel the presence,
the huge unsayable presence
of the One in whose absence
there is such nearness.
Because sometimes, God,
sometimes
you just really miss the skin.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net