“ And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
- Buckaroo Banzai
Just as time prevents everything from happening at once, space keeps everything from ending up in the same place...
To contemplate crossing the vast reaches of space requires wrapping your mind around truly unfathomable distances. For example, it takes light—traveling at 186,000 miles per second—about two and one-half million years to travel to Earth from the Andromeda galaxy pictured above.
Lovers at times face the pain of separation. The rift may be due to things like exigent circumstances, such as traveling for work or military service. Sometimes parting is necessitated by prior commitments. And—arguably the most final reason of all—is the death of one member of a couple...
"So far away, doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?"
- Carole King
even if you happen to remain close in space and time, you might as well be millions of light years apart, unimaginably distant, stranded in another galaxy.
Even in the most painful of circumstances, hope springs eternal. The ultimate answer to everything is Jesus/God's promise of New Heavens and a New Earth. All wrongs righted, all tears wiped away, no more sickness or death.
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and enjoy
that which I create forever;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will enjoy Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress."
- Isaiah 65:17-19 (emphasis added)
Would you like to be part of that coming celebration? Ask me how.
Now, for the sonnet (intended to be read aloud):
It started in all innocence and smiles.
At first, no more than mere platonic friends,
Though kept asunder by restraining miles,
A passion rose that would not brook an end.
By new love and affection wholly shaken,
We hungered to unite as yang and yin,
But faithful to the spouses ere now taken,
We balked at entertaining thoughts of sin.
Such great remove! As Jupiter from Mars,
Our lives—in this age—separate must be.
Cut off, as if dispatched to distant stars,
Each, exiled to a different galaxy.
By God's grace, one day, e'en this gulf we'll span,
His gift to us as resurrected man.
