A leaf falls

We stress and fret and plan and pray – and a leaf falls, tenderly, swirling back and forth on the late summer breeze, suspended, briefly, out-of-time, to begin its up and swaying journey down to the ground. It rests near a pebble, smoothed and polished by some water flow which no longer courses this way.  The pebble, so kind to my fingertips, pleasurable, honed and buffed—not the product of days or minutes, but of aeon.  This pebble was larger, sharper in Jesus’ day; larger and sharper still in Moses’.  Yet it was still a pebble even then.  About the time that Adam’s children walked, east of Eden—or was it before?  -- this pebble in its shiny sharpness slid off the rock cliff face, tumbled down the embankment and landed in its first pool, where the rubbing began. 

But see— Look at the ribbons of color permeating the pebble’s being:  black and white with onyx and crystal, layer upon layer, some thick, some not.  Each color an aeon, a Day, of molten explosion crashing upon the cooled magma that fell before it.  Or is it sandstone I see there, that layer, no, yes! That one:  minglings of minute crystals which had been waste from another pebble’s bufferings.  Sand corn upon sand corn, some black, some white, some big, some smaller.  Each color representing an aeon, a Day, of rubbings and polishings, explosions and coolings:

And we pound on Heaven’s silent doors, accusing:

I look at the rock face before me, my shadow strong and black, cameoed upon the hot jagged surface: 

I see

Layer upon layer, explosions and coolings, and these rocks: not allowed to simply lie there, they are forced up and heaved in and curled down and juxtaposed to the riverbed it once was, stripes like a candy cane, like the braid of my daughter’s hair, here, in a rock, where my black shadow cools it, briefly, from the sun

Which shines now as it has ever shined, intense, brilliant, dependable.  Like the Father who hangs it there.

Does He have fingernails that he is tending to?  Why the wait?  Why the delay! 

A drop.  A drip.  Another pebble smooths.  And my son, suffering, withers in his bed.  

________

Where are you?

I am here. 

  

Why the silence?  My son…..

I know, I see.

But he is…

…he is Mine.  Whichever side of the Veil he lives on, He is Mine, as He always has been.  You don’t see what I see.  The Veil, so thin.  Each side, a breath from each other.  But I am here, I am there; and when I am there I am here. 

But he is…

…but a breath.  The seasons come, and go, the rocks form and fade.  Whether your son lives a longer breath or a shorter one, it is still but a breath.  With me, his life is always, always,

            

               a rushing torrent of wind.  Hope personified!

Your son lives.  Whether on this side of the Veil or the other, your son…

But I do not trivialize your crushing pain.  I know.  I feel, I see.  As you heave your sobs that no one else sees, I heave with you.  Be angry.  But come to Me. 

With each labored breath your son breathes, I labor with him. 

I am not helpless, neither powerless.  I am

                                                                                    Intimate. 

   

Emmanuel. 

No matter what happens,

                                                he is mine.  And I am his.  As I am yours. 

                        And you are Mine.

I want you to know this. 

Intimate.