Joseph Kreydt

Tag: sorrow

  • Loneliness and Presence

    This loneliness, in a world awake, is unnecessary affliction. I run circles around this fearfully imagined lonely future — “it will end like this,” “that is a sign about that,” “she will abandon me,” “he will betray me,” “I will starve.”

    And I wonder why I’m lonely.

    It’s because all that’s real, all that exists, all that is in communion, exists in the present, and all the while I’m seeking it in the past or the future.

    Grace, ever remind me to take three slow breaths, sense and notice the world in the moment, feel the gentle scratch of pencil on paper, and reach out to a friend.

  • Grief Is

    Grief is the lover who gives
        And gives
        And gives
        And waits
        And does not receive
        And dies of starvation.

    Grief is why the widow —
        Who once slept peaceful
        In her lover's arms;
        Who once had dreams
        Instead of memories;
        Who once caressed
        Her lover's cheek and lips,
        Lost in cosmic wonder —
    Cannot eat more than
    A spoonful of soup.

    Grief is
    Going home without,
    And never again
    Going out with home.

  • Enebrimēsato

    In this world, there are places with God and places without God. That is for a very good reason. If there were no places without God, we would have nowhere to run from him.

    For God’s love to be real, we must have the freedom to refuse it, to refuse him. It’s not true love if it’s not a gift, and it’s not a gift unless it can be refused. If we couldn’t refuse it, it would be an imposition, not a gift.

    God makes his love a gift by giving us places to go where his love is not, where he is not. But a place without God, the source of all life, is a place with death. Death is the cost of a world where love exists.

    Because we are loved, death is a part of this world.

    Today, Catholics celebrate Passion Sunday, in which we remember Christ being deeply troubled upon seeing his friend, Mary of Bethany, weeping.

    In John 11:33, Christ’s behavior is described with an intense Greek word, enebrimēsato, that translates to something like “he snorted in spirit.” Christ groaned from the depths of his soul, like a sobbing child, upon seeing the pain that death has caused his friend. He grieves at the pain caused by loving imperfect lovers.

  • Cling

    I sat down with her.

    "Can you separate from me?"

    She started to peel herself away,
    But she didn’t.

    She wanted to,
    And she didn’t.

    "I think you want to,
    But you’re clinging.
    You can separate
    If you want."

    She clung.

    I smiled.

    My depression clung.

    And I realized she
    Was exactly what
    I desperately wanted,

    Someone to stay,
    Someone to cling.