Today I am hanging in the balance.
I am caught, between life and death, betwixt darkness and light.
I cannot feel you as I’ve felt you, I cannot see you as I’ve seen you.
Today I am out of breath.
So much of Holy Lent spent running from supposed unholy things, from demons, from sadness, from the word “alone.”
You gave up your breath — should I just give up?
Today I find no weekend rest; I cannot play or laugh or cry or sleep.
As I grasp and claw for answers, all I find are cross-shaped questions.
The God to which I cling,
is buried a fathom’s deep.
Today I am hanging by a thread.
All of my secret sins are with him down inside the earth.
Where are you, God? Are you in hell?
Today I can be honest and say, “I’m not okay.”
All of my fake facades and fantastic phantasies have left me.
I am exposed, vulnerable, naked, ashamed.
Today is not holy.
There is nothing to set apart from my grief, nothing hidden from my anger.
Christ was forsaken, and I am abandoned until Easter dawn.
Today all I want is Easter flowers.
To trade my guilt for glory, my fear for fulfillment, my horror for hope.
But today I will plant seeds, and watch as they disappear.
Today I grieve what I have lost.
I see names of things and people on tombstones. A graveyard filled with this year’s misery.
And there in the middle of it all, I see my name.
Today I am dead.
With Christ in the tomb where hopes lay fallow.
What bright phoenix will yet rise from these ashes?
