THERE'S NOTHING i CAN DO
and there was a moment last night where my heart was struck- i bolted from the dinner table, i panicked...i was negating emotion all day...and then i returned to my room where the news was waiting. he is dead. he has breathed his last and in that last breath heard the cry of Psalm 139.

my professor is dead

i sit in silence

i sit in silence with friends...i suck the air into my lungs and there is nothing i can do

silence

remembering makes me angry- there was a life taken today

i dismiss my friends, i read poetry, i grab a candle and holden evening prayer book because that reminds me of my community...and my lonely voice rings forth in Miller Chapel.

In the stars that grace the darkness, in the blazing sun of dawn,
in the light of peace and wisdom, we can hear your quiet song.
Love that fills the night with wonder, love that warms the weary soul,
Love that bursts all chains asunder, set us free and make us whole

I return to my room and take the time to reflect on the emotions of this week...

And as I now am thrust into Sunday morning, thrust into standing before the church and representing Princeton Seminary...i am well aware that the woman standing before the congregation this day is a woman whose life stands interconnected with the sufferings of humanity...in full realization that there is nothing she can do that the cross has not already done.


and there settles an unexpected peace.
it is as unexpected as the fiasco of the cross in our lives

it is a peace that speaks through the scorch of suffering

A life is sucked from this earth

my soul sits splintered,
by the word of the cross

and yet in this pain I cannot deny the disturbance of peace
the glory of my soul invaded by the interrupting freedom to be restless in death


at 12:30pm yesterday he was taken...amber's soul continues to touch mine in her words...i heard the tears of jon as he listened to me cry and fumble over what to say...i heard amber's voice on the other line...oh my brothers and sisters...may joanna's heart be held up in prayer...

And in your presence we surrender. We surrender to what we know. We surrender to ourselves. As the night sets in, as the darkness draws near- all that is me is terminated. The cross abides. And as the chaos of humanity continues to persist in it’s clanging gongs and symbols...the cross abides. And as the very breath we attempt is refused to our bodies...the cross abides. We surrender to the cross.