Good Friday

Oh, what a thing that Jesus should die, for me, for us, for all who were slate-grey stone towards him, to die for hardness, for sticky selfishness, for hate and desire and fear and all the cocktail of emotions we use to abuse the paths of peace.  How could he make such a dirty thing come clean, what is this strength of love that can hold evil and death and be transformed not tarnished?  How did he feel when he held each of our wobbling hearts and knew their pain and their recipes for disaster?  How could he love so much that there was no crack, no room for revenge?  How could he be about such a big business as saving the world, and still be there for his friends, for us?  Is this how it starts?  The small local loves that don’t crowd the heart but furnish it with care for the more?  Is that why we can feel it now not as an equation of justice, but as a tender trusting of love?

How long will it take to know the depths of this love?  After I’ve fashioned a new heart for myself, a new path to pursue, there’s still more, always more, encroaching on staleness, unsettling any resting place that has become too cosy a home, for it is not finished, there is always more.  Love doesn’t stop and stagnate, it moves and laughs and lives and calls and heals in ever bigger circles as we set our inner compass to follow its way.