You are built together spiritually
into a dwelling place for God.
—Ephesians 2.22
Tourists come to admire the temple,
to take pictures and buy mementos,
but it’s not on their maps.
Pilgrims come seeking
their separate peace in it,
but they they can’t find it.
Eventually the army arrives,
ordered to destroy the temple,
but it has vanished.
It isn’t here, or there,
it isn’t in a place,
it isn’t a thing.
It is empty space.
It is the love between us.
It is not something that “is,”
but something that happens.
Like gravity that exists
only between objects in space,
the dwelling place of God
exists only in the love
we hold between us.
It is eternal.
When we enter that holy space
among us
which God creates
we enter God,
and nothing can remove us.
In the cool of the sanctuary
we listen to the music
and we breathe.
―July 19, 2018