He was — he is perhaps still — a shipping clerk in his heart.
She, a get-in-the-way kid, now and possibly forever.
They are shown to a table and never open the menu. Hunger
is comfortable for them. The empty feeling seems appropriate.
They talk, they wonder. They try to figure out for themselves, for each
other, where it went. For surely, for both of them — it is gone.
We worked too many hours, fatigue?
We tried too hard — burnout?
We were getting too capable.
We were too proud. In danger of becoming our own gods.
We will find it — just as we left it, after some rest. Yes, I'm
sure of it, after some rewards, some time passes. This is all very
normal, to be expected when you don't..., when you have..., when
you are..., when WHAT??!!! Please what?
Do they, the people at the other tables, wonder — do they
fight to hold back the tears of frustration, confusion, do they ask:
"Where are you, God?" Or do they know? Is that why they chatter and
laugh and seem so light hearted? Yes, they know, they must know. But
do they know in their midst are a shipping clerk and a get-in-the-way
kid who are searching for their last faint feeling of God? The last
trace, the last memory, the last spark of recognition. Searching it out so
they can go to the `second' immediately before that moment to find out
if they had somehow willed God away. Did they choose
something instead? Or was it just they were too busy to notice the absence?
Too busy to notice or to care — yes, maybe it was death by neglect.
Is God gone forever from them, or will they be given
another chance? Will the gift of faith be theirs once more? Will it
happen perhaps in a church;or will they have to travel in service to a
foreign land? Will it be as convenient as their neighborhood, or as plush
as One Lake Shore Drive? Does it need poverty like a soup kitchen?
Or can it happen anywhere, anywhere at all?
God, speak to them — don't let them wonder — they are ready now to listen. Help them take the hunger away.