Listen. Your sorrows pin you to this place. They divide you from what your heart knows, and there are a lot of good hearts out there, I’m looking out there and I’m seeing a lot of good hearts out there. And we bandage our soft selves in hardness, in anger. You are a stranger to yourself, and yet he knows you. And when your hard heart made you like unto the stone and broke you from his body, which is the stars and the wind between the stars, he knew you. He knew you yet and forever. Because I ask you, how could the father forget his children? How could the world forget itself? It doesn’t matter that the children do not understand what they are, it doesn’t matter that the world thinks it is many different things rather than one: Him. Doesn’t matter.My sad and joyous and frightened and courageous brothers and sisters, I want you to do something for me. I want you to close your eyes. I want you to close your eyes and let your chests swell as his lungs fill his portion in us, in each other, every single one of you sitting here today, each other, I want you to listen for that answer. If ever your sorrow becomes such a burden that you forget yourself, forget this world, I want you to remember this truth. It’s as indelible as the sun in the sky and the ground beneath your feet: This world is a veil, and the face you wear is not your own.The shape of our true face is not yet known to us, and so I press my eyes to the bars and I look out and I look up and I ask the question. No, I beg the question: Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, your arms open and close and the echoes of my life could never contain a single truth about you. You move the feather and the ash, you touch the leaf with his flame, you lent your soul to an infinity of atomic creation and of it I am less than a drop in the ocean.
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