No Before or After
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light…
Isaiah 26:19
Now in the blessed days of more and less
when the news about time is that each day
there is less of it I know none of that
as I walk out through the early garden
only the day and I are here with no
before or after and the dew looks up
without a number or a present age
~W. S. Merwin “Dew Light” from The Moon Before Morning
Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
~Emily Dickinson
It seems I measure time by calendar page turns.
A “before” is turned under, covered up by what comes “after.”
Day follows day, week follows week, month follows month, for now…
What I am aware of is how diminishing time is, how I live more and more in the “after.”
Each new month seems to arrive “out of breath.”
So I look to the sky to watch the sun come and go,
as the moon rises and sets, knowing it will always be so.
The morning dew light blesses me now, no before or after.
It is sent by the Lord; I feel breathless as witness.
How can this not always be the way of things?
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…