A few days ago, my wife and I received a greeting card from a friend, Mary Docter. Inside the greeting card, was an insert from the book To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue. The message describes the beauty about Absence. The message is so appropriate for the quarantine and social distance times in which we live today. Be blessed.

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.

May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.

May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell.

May you be generous in your embrace of loss.

May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow of presence.

May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from.

May you have the courage to speak for the excluded ones.

May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.

May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.

May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one.

May your longing inhabit it’s dreams within the Great Belonging.

`
from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue