After the Tsunami in Japan

The future has never been certain. I just didn't think about it much because I had a picture of it that was pretty plausible, and it was sunny.

Everyday we touch eternity in little ways: a morning prayer, a transcendent smile, anything that reminds us what we see is not all there is. Some days we touch it in bigger ways - like the day a child is born, or like the day our friend's mother said to her Hospice worker, "I just want to go see Jesus now!" The worker said, "Well, he hasn't gotten your room ready quite yet." By the end of the week, he had; she was gone from here.

On days like that, eternity encroaches upon us, devours our coastline. One day, eternity will be all there is, eclipsing this world entirely, when we see him coming on the clouds. “And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples will mourn because of him.”

I have an inkling that what is most ordinary in this life might be the most eternal, the very stuff of the kingdom of God. I have an idea that everything big and flashy, everything famous and "important" will be the things that diminish and fall away, and the little things, the hands and knees crawling over me in the morning in bed, the making of breakfasts, the simple cleaning and keeping of things, the family meals around the table - the simple, hidden, anonymous life - will be the things that grow and grow into a mountain, into a kingdom of light that fills the world. After all, where are we going to sit in the end? We will be around a table, at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Won't it be the best family table you've ever seen? We'll each have our spot and be known and welcomed to it, this time without any undercurrents of tension or old wounds or elephants in the room. All will be known and forgiven.

This is what I pray for my children: that they will be so strong in their identity in Christ and his light so bright in their hearts that no matter what happens to them, nothing can even touch it. I pray over them the meanings of their names: High Tower, Wisdom, and Strong Protector. I know they have been born for just such a time as this.

(2011)