Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Grief

Really feeling for R P's grieving family tonight ..

It’s right to grieve.
Christ’s tears at Lazarus’ tomb
Blaze through the sodden lie that all is well:
The arching, vast material untruth.

All is not well.
Here sorrow, loss and pain,
Unfinished lives, words lost, a touch withheld,
The sorry outflow of a muddled life –
A muddied life that’s never wholly clean.

All is not well.
This body born for death
Carries decay within its very life,
Wearing away with mortal weariness
The blood’s perpetual rush : down, down to death.

All is not well.
This is the land of grief
Where promises grow bankrupt and stars fall,
And faith transmutes to courage to survive,
Or just keep breathing. Night is very dark
And bitterness lasts longer than the night,
The lights go out, the air is growing cold.

All is not well.
Then grieve your holy tears
And let the light perpetual shine on them
And shine on you.
Go kneel in utter grief
Prostrate before the barrenness of time
And own despair
And own He has been there.

There is no answer from that garden tomb
Except its emptiness.
That is enough
Enough and more.
Enough and everything.

4 comments:

Suzanne R said...

I think, too, about how we carry the seeds of our deaths within us from the moment we are born. And yet, through Jesus, we can go through that mortality to immortality. It's a wonderful thing, although the grieving along the way when a person goes through this process is natural and needful.

Milly said...

Praying for this family.

Lynne said...

Thank you, they need our prayers

Kevin Knox said...

Circumstances. :-(

May the Lord allow the left behind to see how Christ abolished all circumstances and all the power of sin when He conquered death. He and they stand in Him in audacious perfection.

Your poem speaks it perfectly and beautiful.

I thank you for them.