And the women were there… - a poem for Holy Week

A poem by Gillian Hick. Gillian is chaplain in the Training Unit at Mountjoy Jail. She studied theology at the Priory Institute.

‘Many women were there also, looking on from a distance’  (Mt. 27:55).

In that liminal space of Holy Saturday, 

the women were there.

And it seems like nothing has changed.

The women are still watching and waiting in that endlessly enduring liminal space.

And maybe that’s how it was always meant to be.

In the liminal space – intimately connected to the before, and the after…

In the liminal space – where words and doctrines and dogma have no place…

In the liminal space – where everything is, was and ever shall be…

In the endless depth and length and breadth of that liminal space – a place to hold, to encounter, to bear witness –  to all that is sacred – all that has been – all that will be …

Encircling - ever before - ever after..

Endlessly integrating, weaving – guided by the seamless input of the Divine - following, in the apparent silence, the unheard whisper…

In the liminal space – hearing the untold truths lurking deep within a wounded soul…

Painstakingly, agonisingly – drawing forth what has been held back – in the liminal space that knows no judgement of what has been or what will be…

In the liminal space, it is the women who sit, silently - nourishing, caressing, holding the vast heartache as it emerges from the wounded soul.

For in the liminal space, the penance is not just to love, but to love more extravagantly - to open the gate for unconditional love to flow – in harmony – in unity -

                   through Him,

                   with Him

                   in Him

  As it is, as it was and as it ever shall be…