In Memory of a Spiritual Mentor: 1908-1971

You were like no one else.

Everything about you
was open
to everything about you.

Even your skin
was the color
of all people,
as if to remind

that our skin
is no identity badge
but a canvas
upon which
the history
of our souls
is painted.

You saw,
deeply,
into this world,
and through it
to others.

You loved me --
of this i am certain --
in part because you saw that,
with the unknowing omniscience
of a child,
i loved God.

You taught
with your eyes.

Your soul
burned for God,
shrank from praise,
retreated to its small
bright room
of plants
and icons,
there to reach
fervently
toward its Maker.

i cannot fathom,
cannot forgive
that, after all this,
you died alone.

And yet,
you have forgiven.
You have said as much.

And in this,
you live still:
bound back up
in eternal becoming
you wash the stones
on the other shore

and prepare a feast
of forgiveness
for those who come.

-- Mr. Gobley