A broken tulip

John 11 – “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes into me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 

“Whoever believes into me”

gives me hope, that faith is not abstract

but pressing against and into something tangible and real.

Maybe belief is being a cut off stem, about to die, until a living plant opens its side for you, until you lean into that quick green life, until your lives join and you flower

or maybe it is pushing into thick, falling water that heals like the cool night sky, a sky you can breathe, you push into it, believe into, lay yourself there

at his feet. It is Thomas, fingers in the side of his Lord. It is Mary’s perfume, spilled for his burial.

It is believing into him – surrendering to the wind which lifts you off your feet on a stormy night.

It is the heart, body and lives of two lovers become one. Whoever believes into me becomes one with me

she joins her life stream into the torrent of my life river

defies time and death and despair in me. Though she die, yet shall she live. And that life, that belief, that woman, she shall never die.

Did it stir Martha’s heart somewhere deep, to see the plant she had become branching out into an eternal tree of healing, flowers more solid than a mahogany blossom?

The night-water that she breathes shoots upwards with all the wild beauty of Northern Lights which dance upon a cold, life-numbed world. And the Lover spins her closer and closer, his breath is warm, his hands gentle.

You shall never die.

Do you believe this?