Realizing Resurrection

             Were not our hearts burning within us
           while he was talking to us on the road?
                           —Luke 24.32

Our deepest grief
is not that we have lost what we loved
but that in our aloneness
our hearts burned within us
and we didn't notice.

That as we walked
through the shadowed valleys
we were accompanied
and didn't believe it.

That we were in the presence of the holy
and weren't aware.

That we, too,
because we are so beloved, are holy,
and held in the umbilical arms of life
and raised from death
and don't even realize it.

Our deepest grief
is the burning of our hearts,
not a hankering back
but a reaching forward,
the labor pain of a birth unbirthed,
a newness we haven't embraced yet,
a resurrection we haven't yet made real.

As our holiness blossoms within us
we allow ourselves to be led
by the burning of our hearts,
shedding what is expected of us—molting—
and becoming, always newly becoming
who were are created to be,
realizing resurrection.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net April 20, 2023