Tonight I Walked Through The Empty Streets

Five years ago I attended my first class at Wheaton College. Baffling. I figured out that since then, I have had over 150 million heartbeats. Amazing. What did I do with so many heartbeats? Some I slept through while others occurred while hurting people. Some happened while I was telling a friend I loved him and others while I was cursing a stranger under my breath. Even in the constant change that is life on earth, my breath and heart were sustained. God, time and again, proved his mercy and love by providing the blood that allowed me to fail as well as get it right every now and then. His goodness remains ever with me and the joy of his world continually at hand. I so rarely, however, stop to soak in the glories of the day or the emensity of his splendor. His love endures. Always.
I walked through the streets of Wheaton tonight remembering. I remembered what happened here, what happened there. Each memory seems so distant but still so near. In each instance the person I was then seems so unlikely. I don't know how I survived some of the days in the last five years. I don't know where the time has gone and how it has ended up here. I remember how painful and joyful the last half-decade has been. In that time, so many friendships evolved, some disintegrated. How is it possible that so much can change so seemingly quickly? How is the person that arrived in Wheaton in 2003 the same person who stands before you now in 2008, only not the same as before. The same, but different. The events that have happened in the time from being eighteen to twenty-three must be enough to fill several books, but why is it that I can't find any words to give the time? And why am I so afraid of forgetting? Or am I afraid of being forgotten?
But still, while everything is tumultuous and finite people are forgetful, walking barefoot down Main Street brings to mind the unchanging and eternal God in whose memory I will live forever. Like the thief on the cross, I cry to him, "Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom." My one hope is to hear the same words he uttered to the man on his right. And sometimes, when it's especially quiet and I listen especially hard, I can almost hear his breath. I can almost hear his voice. He exhales through me, looking at the clouds, and, gladly, I shout "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

And Now, A Poem

"As We See" by Scott Cairns

The transfiguration of our Lord - that is, the radiance in which he was bathed at the pinnacle of Mount Tabor - did not manifest a change in Him, but a change in those who saw Him.
- Issac the Least

Suppose the Holy One Whose Face We Seek
is not so much invisible as we
are ill equipped to apprehend His grave
proximity. Suppose our fixed attention
serves mostly to make evident the gap
dividing what is seen and what is here.

The Book there on the stand proves arduous
to open, entombed as it is in layers
of accretion, layers of gloss applied
to varied purposes, hardly any of them
laudable, so many, guarded ploys
to keep the terms quite sitll, predictable.

Which is why I'm drawn to - why I love - the way
the rabbis teach. I love the way they read -
opening The Book with reverence for what
they've found before, joy for what lies waiting.
I love the Word's ability to rise again
from chronic homiletic burial.

Say the One is not so hidden as we
are kept by our own conjuncture blinking,
puzzled, leaning in without result. Let's say
the meek, the poor, the merciful all
suspect His hand despite the evidence.
As for those rarest folk, the pure in heart?
Intent on what they touch, they see Him now.