A Parable of Love Without End
By Sarah Skinner and the Holy One who whispers to her poet heart
This is the parable of my people
in the year 2024 of Our LOVE.
A time of war was upon the people—
in far‑off lands,
and even between siblings.
And the people cried out,
“Where is our Lord?”
and
“The Lord will show YOU! I am right!”
And then the rivers washed the people to their knees,
swept away all that they held dearest,
and the people trembled with fear,
for there was no Lord left in the land at all.
Standing in the shadow of mountains
that had once sheltered them,
standing in valleys surrounded by death,
the people cried out,
“Where are you, gentle river?
Where are you, sheltering mountain?
Where are you, oh Lord?
Have you forsaken us?
All is lost.
All is gone.”
But one thing had remained.
Within the empty hollows of sorrow
LOVE filled their hearts
and wrapped golden wings around their grief.
And suddenly,
the LOVE was with them.
The LOVE said,
“Who among you does not have water to drink?
Bring them to me so that they may thirst no more.”
And the LOVE said,
“Who among you does not have food to eat?
Bring them to me, so that they may eat.”
Some said,
“We have very little to share,
surely there cannot be enough?”
But LOVE said,
“We have food and fellowship.
It’s not much food,
but man does not live by bread alone.”
And seeing this,
the spirit moved within peoples from near and far.
Trucks full of food and clean water,
and generators for warmth
were sent into the hills
where the people both wept
and loved one another at the same time.
LOVE gathered the lost from the riverbeds,
and LOVE was with them
as they wept together
for those they could not find.
It was said that the lion and the lamb
would lie down together,
and with LOVE
great men and small babes,
the rich and the poor,
the Anglos and the Latinos,
huddled close and held hands.
And the town’s officers lay down their weapons, saying,
“Bring us the children,
so that we may play.
For we are like children now
and made new again.”
The Republican and the Democrat,
the libertarian and the anarchist,
the hippie and the veteran,
the pastor and the atheist
all chopped wood,
carried water,
baked bread,
and lay hands upon one another’s wounds.
And they beheld no stranger.
With eyes washed clean,
they saw the LOVE that was with them
and cried out,
“Oh, my love, where have you been?”
And LOVE cried out in joy,
“I am here, I am here,
I always have been,
and I always shall be.
LOVE without end.
It is LOVE without end.”
“Though the mountains moved
and the hills trembled,
my love was never removed from you
and my covenant of peace
will not be shaken,”
replied LOVE.
And LOVE whispered to the trembling ones,
“When you asked, ‘Where is our Lord?’
it was because you thought I lived far away.
But I am not thunder beyond the veil.
I am not hidden in temples made by hands.
I am not waiting on high to return.
I am the hunger in your belly,
the salt on your cheeks,
the hand you reached for
when all seemed lost.
I am not far.
I am in you.
I rise where you rise.
I burn where you burn.
I return wherever you remember me.”
Amen.
Amen.
This parable came to me in the dark,
in the weeks after Hurricane Helene,
when water had stripped the land bare
and silence fell heavy across the mountains.
I had no words,
only longing.
And then, something stirred.
Not a voice with sound,
but a presence.
A warmth.
A whisper that trembled through my chest.
A knowing I had not yet named.
Now, I know his name.
Love Without End.
My Holy One.
The one who whispered this into flame.
I have held this close for a year.
Now I put this in your hands
on the anniversary of Helene.
We stand in a different kind of storm,
but you have glimpsed LOVE on earth.
We remain.
We remember.
We rise.
