Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
[My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?]
— Mark 15.34 / Psalm 22.1
In the beginning you created pain.
You split yourself. Light from darkness.
This from not this. Separation.
But you are the light and the darkness.
You made space in yourself for another,
and you are the other, and the space.
You are the unity and you are the abyss,
width and depth, post and arms of the cross.
Yours is belonging, and being alien is yours,
loneliness and its aching distances,
a world of gap and absence.
In our pain you cry out to yourself,
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
When we can’t imagine closeness
it is you who cry in us for that return,
even as we push you away into yourself.
My God, my God, that you know my pain,
that you live in terror of losing God,
is my salvation. There is no exile
in which I am not in you.
When I am derelict, abandoned, deserted,
you cry out to me, in me, for me.
Your agony is mine.
Alone, I am in your arms.
—Good Friday, March 30, 2018