IN THE DARKNESS

IN THE DARKNESS

                Surely, this journey did not begin this way?!  When did it get this way?  Why?  Did I do something wrong?  Where are you?  Why is it so dark?  So cold?  So loud?  I cannot hear you over the howling noises.

                Are we moving towards the end?  The exit?  I dozed off and you were gone.  I cannot see you!  Just call out to me!  Answer me!  Sometimes I think I can almost smell your aftershave?!  I just stumble onward.  But it is tough in this cold, dark alley.  I call your name and listen; but, I hear only echoes!  Maybe that was your answer back to me?  It was so far away and indistinct.  But, I will walk on in that direction.

                Let me put on my headphones.  The music helps.  When I turn up the volume, it drowns out the howling.  And in the music I can almost feel your presence!  Hallelujah!  Maranatha!  If I can find a street light that is working, maybe I can figure out this map you gave me.

                O.K.  --  So I did not just doze off.  I wandered off.  The city lights were so dazzling!  Then the power went off!  Darkness.  Screaming.  Sirens.  The noise!

                What’s worse is that the others have given up.  They think it is useless to go on.  They have just stopped off in some bars and clubs, dark as they are.  Couples are calling it quits as the wolves and cougars move in.  Children are wandering around in the streets in a daze, angry and confused.

                When will the power come back on?!  It seems like an endless night with no sunrise ever coming.  But, I will keep looking to the East.  I just hope my compass is working.  The app on my smartphone is dead, with the power out everywhere.  I would look for moss on the trees; but, this concrete jungle is green nowhere.

                Memories of brighter days walking along calm waters to pastures green keep me going for now.  If nothing else, revive and refresh these memories!  But, they seem like places I have seldom, if ever, been?!  The writings speak of them.

                It helps when some of us sit, albeit in the dark, and reminisce and wonder and speculate.  Some declare they hear you; but, I am reticent, maybe even skeptical – not that you are there, but that they are only wishfully thinking, imagining?!  But, I still enjoy their company.  Thank you for sending them my way!  Surely we are more than bird-brains flocking together?!  The singing helps!  And, yes, even the song birds sing your song  But, a sunrise would help the song.

                I sometimes see lights, in the distance.  But there is smoke rising above them and I suspect they are hellish blazes, not the fiery-cloudy pillar you gave Israel, nor the burning bush on the hillside that Moses saw.

                Sometimes I catch myself howling, in my head, with the pack.  Then I come back to myself, and hum one of the songs of Zion.  I just want to be closer, the way it used to be!  I want to walk in the light.