My life closed twice before its close--a poem by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close--
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

~Emily Dickinson

Lamentations of the Theotokos

This page contains the hymnography for the Matins of Holy Saturday, celebrated on Good Friday evening. The service contains the hauntingly beautiful Lamentations of the Theotokos, the Mother of God's lament for her Son in the tomb.

This year, fittingly, Nelson's birthday falls on Good Friday. I am sure I will get choked up singing the Lamentations. As the Theotokos wept for her Son, so I weep for my Nelson. I have more than three days to wait til I can see him again--but in Christ's resurrection is Nelson's resurrection. Unlike the Theotokos, I have more than three days to wait, but she didn't know she only had three days...

Grief is grief. Thank God our Church's hymnography recognizes that, and gives words to human suffering--words shot through with both pain and hope.

Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Savior, save us.

grief poem. written Monday, January 25, 2010. 2 months, 3 weeks, 3 days.

Port-au-Prince,
You metaphor for my soul
Not one stone
Laid upon another whole
Earthquake, turmoil, wreckage
Despair, disaster—so!
Everything’s flattened,
Nothing is left.
No one cares for my soul.