so soft, your goodbye

The Word for today:
Ezekiel 11

mark this: Ezekiel 11:22-23
Then the cherubim spread their wings with their wheels alongside them while the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them.
And the glory of the LORD rose up from within the city and stopped over the mountain east of it.

There are moments in the Bible that we try to bury too deep for memory to find. But the deeper down we dig, the more indelible these moments become. The reluctant withdrawal of the Shekinah glory from the temple is one of these moments.

The glory departs. But the memory won't leave you alone. It doesn't intend to. It was written to resurface, and even to haunt.

***

Knowing that when the door shuts behind him the song won't ever sound the same, the Presence of the LORD lingers until he can no more. So soft, his goodbye.

He's loyal, God. You have to want him gone for him to go. Then he shuts the door so silently that his parting seems never to have happened; that upon your awakening his going away will have gone away, like a dream returned to its genesis in your dark imagination.

But beside you, nothing. No number, no forwarding address, no note, no pin.

***

God's Presence--this time as Immanuel, emptied of Shekinah--would not return for 700 years. Once again he was not wanted. Once again, just before leaving, he lingered over a city whose moment was slipping away:
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying,
"If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." (Luke 19:41-44)

***

Each of us knows a song we will never hear again.  We might play it again, but we will never hear it again, not the way it was before.

This is your last best shot at love.  Stand between him and the door.  You never want to hear how soft his goodbye.

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