The trees sway gently in the breeze as birds flutter playfully from limb to limb. The brilliant color of the bright, sunny sky offers a sneak preview of tiny blue eggs that will soon fill nests carefully hidden among the branches.
I turn my head away from this scene outside my window, bringing my gaze back to my laptop computer. My eyes blink, then they open wide to the menacing blank screen glaring back at me, mocking me, telling me, “Here’s what your empty thoughts look like.”
I have a fresh cup of coffee. I’m settled into my favorite spot, ready to write my next blog post. But the little cursor just keeps flickering.
I look back out through the window. Sunshine. Blue sky. It’s a beautiful spring morning. I’m ready to go. I’m ready to write.
Nothing.
And Then a Thought
A question comes to me: What am I thinking about at this very moment?
Living life after loss. Those words have rattled around in my mind for several months. I wrote a blog post with that title. Here’s a quote from it:
If you don’t have to fight for it, if there’s no struggle, if it comes too easily, if you haven’t poured your heart and soul into it, then having it doesn’t mean as much, and losing it won’t hurt as bad. The pain won’t be as deep because the loss won’t be so great.
Living Life After Loss, ArtSpeaking.com
Death seems so final. The more significant the loss, the more shattered and sorrowful you will be.
Looking up from my laptop computer, I catch a glimpse of something across the room on my desk. I recognize a piece of paper with a poem on it. A poem I wrote a long time ago. So long ago, I was only seventeen years old. It’s remarkable how the words in this poem seem to foreshadow the life that would be lived.
I don’t know what I was thinking forty years ago when I wrote it. But today I think this might be what I would write at this moment. So here it is.
The 40-year Lament of Seventeen
When I considered time and how it moves on,
When I saw I had no power to halt its onward course,
When I could not force it to turn back,
I knew that forever was far away.
O Soul, distant, daring, darkness of life,
Will you not allow for peace? Will you not die?
Will you not give up and lie down?
Or is it too much to expect
From a deadened, dreary, soul?
Death is looming over your shoulder,
Staring, searching, beguiling, finding itself.
But Death keeps on until the last has fallen down,
Until the strongest steel is broken,
Until the light has faded,
Until the will of the soul is gone.
O Soul, Death is your captor.
Short-lived, undeserved, time goes on without you.
Never stopping, never missing, never ending.
Heedless of the loss,
Mindless of the doom,
Careless to not even mourn.
But don’t lose hope: this is not the end.
Look. Step out of the shadow and lift your head.
You are delivered. See the Champion; behold the Conqueror.
Time hunts no fetter,
Fear has no shackle,
Shame holds no tears.
O Soul, victory is nigh!
Death has been defeated; the sting is vanquished.
You will see your Redeemer standing on the earth.
You will see. And you will live.
Heedless of the loss,
Mindless of the doom,
Careful to wait for the morn.
__________
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