Your soul is sterling.
Source: Mark 14:34Abba, those whose dawn is your light know night no more. Infinity makes your home in them: they dwell in you, and you in them.
And yet there is nothing like you.
Is there?
Who could be like you?
With a single mighty word, in a bellowing blast of colliding coals, you split off rock from the firmament.
And yet my tender soul rests in your breath; my birthright is rooted in your strength.
There is nothing like you.
Like honey, your gentle gaze flows over ravaged souls. To be healed, to be broken, if by your hand, is good.
Soothed in your arms, rocked in your intimate name, sleep all the oppressed.
You offer shade as well as light.
There is nothing like you.
You show me a path ahead: I cannot stray. You stay awake with me, facing night fears: I am not alone. Even afraid, I call up courage: I do not disappoint you. Winning and losing alike bring me back to you. If I suffer, you suffer with me. If I am hurting, you are hurt with me. Who harms me harms you as well; and you bless the flame that warms my home.
There is nothing like you.
Tonight I will stay awake with him. So many of us stay awake with him: here, there, since that long-ago night, till the end of time. We watch, we wait, with the wakeful one. In our turn and in our time we come down to the dust, while others rise up. Our attentiveness will have no end. You bind us together; we are one.
You are the word; you are the Word. In you, the spirit finds meaning. Truly there is nothing like you.
You open the casket of secrets; you show us where to look. From you I draw what clears my vision. I no longer know whether I am the world I see, or whether it is you who sparkle in my eyes.
Truly there can be nothing like you.
Who could be like you?
In the west, tears flow down the wall; no angel of destruction stands on Mount Moriah. The golden wings atop the ark have folded by themselves; the essential presence remains.
The wakeful one's woundedness will shed my blood. His suffering will break me. If he falls, his full weight will rest on my shoulders. His tears will dim my eyes; his fire will consume me, for no water can quench his thirst.
And then, Abba, your blessing will descend upon us, for all you have left will be our love for him.
There can be nothing like you.
Texts via St. Mark.