“This is a strange place”
This is a strange place
and I would be lost were it not for all the others
who have been here before me.
It is the alien space
of your absence.
It has been called, by some,
the dark night of the soul.
But it is absence of dark as well as light,
an odd emptiness,
the chill of any land without your presence.
And yet, in this Lent of your absence,
I am more certain of your love and comfort
than when it is I who have withdrawn from you.
— Madeleine L’Engle
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