אלי אלי למה עזבתני

Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

This is not a rhetorical question, the answer to which is already known.

This is not an interrogative question, the answer to which can be stated clearly.

This is a cry of deep pain and despair, for which there are simply no words.

When our care for loved ones stirs a desire in us to say something--anything--to try and ease the fire of unfathomable pain, we would do well to remember God's initial response was silence.

In that silence, resurrection power had time to speak louder than words.

Let us consider carefully our response to other people's suffering. Very rarely are the answers that fit into words sufficient.

Ghosts

Ghosts
are watching me
on bustling campus walkways pulled
toward rooms of drab florescent bulbs,
inducing convalescent lull.
As I lay me down to sleep
and rise again to coffee need,
they're watching me bemusedly.

Ghosts
are calling me
with wedding bells aloft and ringing,
from window sills where doves are winging
through heavens rent apart with singing.
Laughing in the yard, they are
a choir of love for all the parts
I've hidden in the closet's dark.

Ghosts
are urging me
to look their way and witness how
they walk the line but don't allow
their consciences to weigh them down.
Floating on the midnight sea,
they have not ceased condemning me,
nor will they heed my guilty plea.

Ghosts
are keeping me
from resting in peace.