No Goodbye
Today I sit at a table with friends who are moving to the other side of this globe, and I sit and reel. At this coffee shop, they are known. People walk by and put hands on their shoulders, to touch the body, the unreal glory of tents.
They move away, and yet spirit makes them just as close. This body, this tapestry with the Lover, the Weaver.
We are close and we pray. There are no goodbyes. All, so much, is unknown, the brokenness up ahead, the scales falling off the scales of all our eyes.
How much have we said lately that it’s worth it, the gospel? That there’s nothing we can do.
Coffee cups and plastic lids and Mac laptops. Somewhat hipster academic hippy edges, our winter scarves, the fox and owl trends all around. They hold hands and make eyes, like a big wave is coming, and they’re about to ride. I see the elder’s eyes glisten, proud. Ah, I know the curtain is split. We are alive in eternity, in this room with GOD, sometimes like a fed-flower in the crack of a rock. We are more than stars and sand.
We sit here across the world and one with those in secret churches, the lonely pleading in special-needs cribs. We are one with the jailed, the worked-down-to-the-bone, out on the sands of deserts and in the highlands with Nomads and their livestock. We cry, all of us, hush the rocks.
They go, and all is grace. Nothing they can do. We only know what we’ve been told. So they go, and we send. Hallelujah.
***
Say a prayer for my friends?
And also see in my sidebar? That playlist of music? You can hear their hearts there. Gorgeous. Check it out!
- February 15, 2012
- 11 Comments
- 0
- church, Friends
Seth
February 15, 2012We're out on the sands with the Nomads... if only...
I really loved this Amber. It's time for more of this.
deb
February 15, 2012Only you can do this.
Cathy Monetti
February 15, 2012I will read this a thousand times, and then a thousand more.
Blessings to you and to your friends.
Caroline Starr Rose
February 16, 2012There really is no separating those in His hand (though I know how much it hurts in the now). Blessings to you and your friends.
Darcy @ Message in a Mason Jar
February 16, 2012I've gone and I've sent, so this resonates. Beautiful music your friends are making. And beautiful words you're writing..."like a fed-flower in the crack of a rock".
Addie Zierman
February 16, 2012Beautiful.
diana trautwein
February 16, 2012Ah, yes, "We ARE more than stars and sand..." Prayers for your friends, wherever they are going, whatever they are doing, that they may carry your love and God's with them into every crevice of this new life.
Heather
February 16, 2012I just discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago. Thank you for writing. Your words remind me of the essays in Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard. Beautiful. I look forward to following your journey.
imperfect prose
February 16, 2012your heart is so big, amber. love you.
leslie
February 17, 2012coming over here from deb's place, this morning. your words made me weep. and rejoice, too, somehow...
" Ah, I know the curtain is split. We are alive in eternity, in this room with GOD, sometimes like a fed-flower in the crack of a rock. "
may your friends know His presence as they go forth, and may they also know the presence, through His spirit, of all of you, with them.
Amy @ themessymiddle
February 19, 2012As one who lives on the other side of the world, I find it doesn't get easier with time. It did in the short run, but over the years, it hasn't. But, God has faithfully gone before, besides, and behind all of the coming and going!