Empty. . .

Suffering scours and scrapes us clean.

Then alone, we are hollow.
Empty as the heart of a mountain,
rough-hewn by the cuts of sin and sorrow.

Sitting in our stone-carved solitudes, clattering, words falling like rocks, who does not ultimately long to be filled? To be answered?


We come of age and reach that "cross"-road where a choice must be made. A turn to the right or the left, a turn within or a turn without.

Do we believe? Is there a hand reaching into our wounded sides to touch our trembling hearts? Will it take hold of our fear and pour it out? Is this a hand we can trust?

Will we take it or will we fear again what this pierced hand holds out to us?
Will we run from Crucified Love?

Running will not heal the hurt. We must put aside the pills and ask for no more substitutes. No more Babelling Towers that rise up to our own hollow heavens. We must turn back to Love.

Love that was born in a cave in the earth.
Love that was buried in a tomb in the earth.

We find Him suffering too, scoured and scraped clean by sorrow,
our sorrow, all sorrow, heaped up and balanced on His back.

Didn't we notice He was there?
In the classroom, in the alleyway, on the gallows, under mortar fire and in the ocean deep and cold? Where else would Love be?

All death and sorrow has been swallowed up in His death.
All tears and madness are consumed in His dying.
All tombs will someday be empty because of Him.

So let's come before Crucified Love and weep; then let's peer inside and see.

Until we recognize Him in all of this, we are in the dark, alone, outside an empty tomb...
struggling to make sense of ourselves without Him.

Seeking the living among the dead.