For Something More

I woke early in the dark and cold with only red numbers projected on the ceiling, confirming that yes, it is early, and yes, it is still dark 04 hundred.

I lie here awake. The pain has been my alarm, and I am so tired,

tired of tired,

tired of it. And I long for heaven.

When you are strong, heaven is an ever-after long time ahead—a warm, fuzzy promise for after I have collected all my joys

and toys

and am done with them, ready to move on. But as time wanes and the body fails,

what I have played with seems much more shallow;

what I thought would last forever is fading fast, and

my perspective is turned to what is ahead rather than what is behind

. . . or now.

And the nice ever after becomes a longing, and the firmly held hope becomes a thing of desperation because if there is nothing more—nothing beyond

this,

weakness,

betrayal,

the emptiness of Solomon days,

then there is no hope at all. It—

life—energies spent—

will have been the unproductive works of fools. And we will know that as we drift toward annihilation.

Hope makes sense of it.

God makes sense of it all.

Why would violence unsettle us?

Why would unfaithfulness feed bitterness in our hearts?

We might as well cry as laugh—just as well harm as help. Nothing would matter—

and yet it does.

Even those who profess a no-god know we are made for something more.