What happened in the tomb, that darkened space
between the Cross and the noiseless linens laid aside?
Who speaks to us of this inaudible obscurity?
No one. The secret of silent gestation overlooked
in favour of the grand moment of resurrection.
And yet,
a part of each life bears resemblance to that bleakness
in which a quiet turning from death to life unfolds.

A similar story of the unheard, the unspoken, the unfelt
breathes in the wintered bud preparing for blossom,
the caterpillar cells giving way to a monarch’s beauty,
the wonder of a human forming in a mother’s womb,
a sleeping seed awakening in the darkened soil.

Each turns slowly towards life, like the beloved of the
Soul tethered by thickness of stone in the tomb’s seclusion.
There the Holy One waited, coming forth as all-abiding Spirit, forever present, forever near, forever in love with us.

Who urges us to sit still, to be patient in the nurturing
tomb of darkness, to enter its enveloping silence with assurance? Where do we seek steady courage when sadness,
distress, confusion, and flatness wall us in with airless depression? How do we wait with a balance of acceptance and yearning, relinquishment and action, hesitation and confidence?

The stones that block our light, whatever they might be let us stop shoving them aside. Give ourselves over to the gestation required before hope’s fresh air unseals the tomb.

Do not hurry the soul’s metamorphosis. Trust in the
maturation of some essential growth. Remain confident.
Keep focused on the Risen One. Breathe in the possibility of some new joy, for it hides in this very moment, readying itself to slip past the stone. Joyce Rupp