Wednesday of Holy Week – A Meditation

“I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”

Disorientation dishevels one’s spirit;
dislocation disturbs one’s roots;
and social distancing takes scythes to one’s psyche.
One can feel lost while still at home. 
One can feel confusion in the swamps of separation. 
One feels one is treading water in the pools of uncertainty.

An escape route is prayed for;
a trip back to some sense of sanity
stirs in a pleading soul. 
And the beckoning, the beckoning, the beckoning
for the freeing path
pulses in the heart, throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.

The longing is heard by the night angel
still bearing the scars of suffering. 
The loon-like cry arises on the troubled waters,
waters in the process of being calmed: 
“I am the Way”.

Losing touch with what one’s here for,
losing a grip on the thoughts of one’s mind,
losing some conscious connection with any shred of meaning, purpose –  
all ways of getting otherwise lost.
Fear in the present; fear for a nebulous future; fear in the blood
become all-consuming.
And the beckoning, the beckoning, the beckoning
for the clouds of unknowing to disperse,
to get shattered into light,
beats on the drumheads of every neuron in the brain.

The pleading is picked up in receptors of the Morning Star
still whispering wisdom from a mouth dried out.
The vibrant wolf-howl echoes in the tangled forest,
the forest starting to straighten itself again: 
“I am the Truth”

Listlessness leaves one stuck in a stupor;
disenchantment drains one’s energy reserves;
the daily dance of dreaming up what to do next
degenerates into a zombie’s slow samba. 
Third gear feels like kinship with the dying, 
second gear grinds away with tired tissue,
first gear is a sapsucker sucking.

“Is there any fresh-scented elixir?”, 
“Could we get God-sent Geritol* please?;
the pores of the bodies are praying. 
And the beckoning, the beckoning, the beckoning
for the re-quickening hope
persists, pants in the breath.

The prayers permeate the flesh of the Noon-day Son,
still pouring out blood for transfusion.  
The wind-borne call of the eagle soaring,
splits the sky open and rains,
rains like rejuvenescent rivers –
“I am the Life”.