On the hill above the valley of oaks, I sit in the cold grass, wrapped in my sleeping bag. I like coming up here and watching the ravens play with the wind. Now it is night.
I am waiting.
But the darkness bereft of moon and stars and the cold mist prickling my face tell me: I won’t see it. That one moment on this one Sunday, that first sliver of fire on the dark line of the horizon telling us we can breathe again—I won’t see it. How will I know? A forlornness settles in me.
I think about her, sitting in the darkness of the garden by the tomb—sitting at the end of all that was conceivable and at the most inconceivable of all endings. Hope had died that Friday, nailed to a cross. What could possibly be left in her? Nothing. Not even waiting.
It’s all been said. Don’t go, don’t leave. Don’t die. Words that spill out of us as if they could chase after and lame the will of what is going to happen. Words that can’t envision transformation, only loss. Eventually, the words, the pleas and promises, the coercion, the reasoning, even hope drops away. Nothing is left, not even waiting.
Then, in the absolute stillness at the ground of complete surrender, there is this.
Stay.
It seems to come not from us but to us. It addresses the whole of us, outside time, between what was and what will be—like a loving hand, gentle, on our arm. But it asks for nothing and gives no picture of what’s to come. No promise. No prompting. Not “don’t give up” or “keep going.” Simply, stay.
We hear it with our bodies—Earth’s tender request, felt as gravity. We catch it in a whisper from a moment of beauty. Once, on this hill, when there was nothing left in me either, not even waiting, I heard it with my heart. It came from everything.
Stay.
The only response, really: a decision. There is no doing, no movement here—only commitment. Pure will. It precedes everything that will happen if we say yes; all that could unfold from that yes is not part of the request. It takes one who asks and one who responds, together, to forge, through that yes, all the movements that flow back into time.
So I sit.
And very slowly, the mist-veiled darkness pales into soft grey contours. Then, in a moment as brief as a breath, the hint of a breeze slips up the hill, and the grasses sway in unison. A puff of tiny feathered creatures joins the rising mist. And the grey of every leaf and blade of grass lifts to a pale, lucent green and breathes into the arriving light.
It has happened. I know, because everything tells me. Everything says yes.
In the stillness, our hearts implore,
Stay.
Yes. Always. Even unto the end of the world.
Then He turns to us,
Rise.
Photo From Shaping Light, Laura Liska, 2025.
