Not long now...

before the first light of dawn comes over the ridge of the Purbeck hills. I'm listening to Brian Eno's beautiful 1'2, with its slow, open piano arpeggios and wordless choir, and the night garden outside the window is still as still.

The silence in the garden before dawn outside Jerusalem must have been absolute, in those last hours before dawn - the air still, no sound from the night birds. Just the whole of Creation, waiting.

I wrote the following, last year, and I'm sorry if anyone's read it before, but I can't find any better words this Easter:

"Tomorrow morning Jesus speaks our name, piercing our incomprehension with his recognition, his knowing, his comprehending us. Our part is to listen – listen into the anechoic disorienting silence, the dead room, the empty garden, long before dawn, “while it was still dark.” This is the time Mary set off, thinking she knew but not even knowing why she went, like we must go, not being able to know why till our Lord calls us by name, but going anyway, into the dark, into the place of tombs, the hortus conclusus, the garden closed to our senses but open to our going in. Listen... listen!"