and frizzes the ends of your hair.
just there –
off to the side –
Or to the right – see it? – the big red walker,
just there,
the one that carries the frail, flailing, failing body
slowly and carefully from place to place.
the one who died, far too young.
just there –
lurking by the office,
Just there,
in the bright red gauze,
the deepening purple of bruise,
the slow, constant tender aching.
No longer a wraith, but a sharp, clear reflection
in the window pane behind the surgeon’s worried face.
The ever-present visitor that no one
wants to see, to wrestle with, even to acknowledge:
we all age;
we all die.
No one escapes,
no one is immune,
no one is immortal.
But then…
Holy Week arrives,
right in the middle of the muddle,
amid the weariness of watching death in action,
inexorable and overwhelming.
And a tiny green thing begins to wriggle its way
to the surface of your soul.
A sprig, really.
A small, tender shoot of hope and life.
Because somehow,
in the very middle of death itself,
there is this ever-growing wick of light.
As we follow the story
to the upper room,
to the garden,
to the house of the high priest,
to the halls of Herod and Pilate,
through the narrow winding streets
of the city,
up that pathway marked by the blood of Jesus himself –
even there…
even there.
There is a whiff of green, a scent of spring.
EVEN THIS, Jesus knows.
This sinking queasiness, this revelation and recognition
that death is an unavoidable part of life –
Jesus has been here, too.
Jesus has been here ahead of us.
And Jesus walks with us when the
dark, shadowy fears show up and torment us.
Even this, Jesus knows.
So today, and tomorrow, and the next day…
I want to shelter this bit of life amid the ashes;
I want to water it with my tears,
and nourish it with my songs of thanksgiving.
And then I want to position it
just there,
where the sunlight,
streaming forth from the empty tomb,
can help it to grow strong and true,
always and forever stretching toward the Light.