Because the soul cries out… in anguish, in joy, in fear, in sorrow, in love, for purpose, for belonging, for an end to the absence, for an end to wandering.

Because the heart is always moving somewhere, trying to find home. The echo the soul hears pulsing through the universe, is the voice of God, saying: come home to me, dear lost ones. You are mine.

That voice plays the heartstrings like harp strings, a pure and painful note of deep, deep promise..The heart tears itself as it strains to find the way. The soul lurches and lunges, soars and plunges searching for the way.

And the way comes down. He touches the ground, scoops up the earth in his hands, squeezing his fist tight, his knuckles white, pressing it to his chest.

Then he finds them, kneeling in the rain, screaming at the hills, louder than a storm. He gathers them in his arms and holds them.

Together they weep. It is the sound of a new world. The sky pales. The warm sun rises. The rain abates.

Birds sing, and the exquisite joy of their voices no longer burns but soothes. The waves lap, saying his name over and over and over and over.

We have found him. We have found him. We have found him, and he will take us home. In him our hearts are found. In him the anthem of our impassioned cries resounds.

It was always in their voices, though they never heard it clearly. Even the ground groaned for him, though the people never understood.

The dark that shrouded them by night and by day, that dark now swept away, it could not hide their hearts from his forever. Its failing grip, broken and gone. And the sun rises on the son.

Ben Cornell, Hope Church