vigil
A temple. That’s what it is. This workbench I stand at daily. Or, at least, that’s what it used to be. How it used to feel. A place that was sure and safe and sacred. A place of lightness and love and listening. A place that held me like nothing else ever did. Where everything felt alive with vibrancy. Where want and reach moved together always.
And then one day, without warning, the presence that filled it all with weight and meaning lifts, shifts, and leaves.
It’s the same room. The same tools. The same scissors. The same glue. The same lighting. And yet, something essential is missing. Something that once breathed with life and spirit has slipped into dormancy. Like standing in a place where someone used to be. A presence so felt, so full, so whole, and so complete, lost to the loud silence of an absence ringing
But I’m still here. Trying to remember what my hands are for. Trying to recall how to go on making things.
Maybe that’s the difference between faithfulness and a fair-weather view. You keep coming to the temple even after you discover the holiest of holies is empty. You light a candle and hold a vigil. You make the ugly work that feels off and clunky.
You hope that what was there and then wasn’t finds its way back to you. And so you wait, and you go on waiting…
May what was lost return to you.
May the quiet hold you in the waiting.
May your faithfulness always lead you.
In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.
I hear you. And maybe it's no consolation, but even if you currently don't feel the spark at the moment of creation, the results are as beautiful as always. You have trained your autopilot well.
May whatever seems lost, return to you Duane.
May your temple again become a place of lightness and love and listening.
May what you want, move towards you when you reach.
May you never lose faith that it will.