Watching the video clip on the news that captured the departing ship to the likely airline crash site in the Java Sea was heart wrenching. The obvious was inevitable. The plane had encountered trouble and bad events followed. While the specifics were unknown, there was strong evidence. Many wondered aloud about the rationale for going. “They, we, everyone knows what they are not going to find.”
As the unanswered question replays in my morning reflection, I am struck by the irony of the answer. Truthfully, I have no idea what they will find or not. While I might think of what s/he is looking for, I do not know. If I was close to someone on the flight and had the opportunity to get on that boat, I know why I would go. I would want to experience the place that has, for a time, become the abode of someone close to my heart.
In a wide range of circumstances good and bad, I have found that being in the presence of where someone close to my heart has or will be creates a connection. It may sound mysterious, odd, or strange, but physically being in proximity to the place where someone endured for a time in her/his journey opens a window through which I can connect and share. Visiting the scene of an accident links me to those involved. Sitting in the place where something wonderful happens covers me in the beauty and wonder of that time, even days and weeks later.
Recently I touched a tree that I had last touched forty-five years ago. Of any memory I could have recalled, I found myself buried in innocent laughter of kids enjoying a temporary zip line anchored high in the tree. I could see faces of those now passed, hear conversations long forgotten, and if only for a moment I was there.
As the clip replayed, I could see a Psalm; “Come and visit the site of disaster, see how they’ve wrecked the sanctuary.” (Psalm 74.3) God lives in us. Where we are, Divinity is.
