Lost

    I came back from seeing Les Miserables; it was the second time, coming home late on a Friday, a second time trying to quiet my heart.
    There is a song in the movie, and both times I cross my arms, hold myself tight, and end up begging God, please, let it stop. Let it end. Let the song be done, let it move on. It is Marius's song, "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables," sung after making true friends and seeing them die. It is a song of loss.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.

Here it was they lit the flame.

Here they sang about `tomorrow'

And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

On the lonely barricade at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and you are gone.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.

Phantom shadows on the floor.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

At the end, the friends who sang the song of revolution now sing the song of heaven, a song with no more swords, no more anger, a song that shows they gained tomorrow.

But this song, it builds till I can barely listen. Coming home, I found it was the sense of loss that echoed in me that made the song painfully unbearable.

But what have I lost?

This is the question I do not know how to answer.
Tell me, what have I lost?
What do I ache for, that I do not have?

I have family, distant but true friends, and a God who loves unconditionally and relentlessly. Tell me, other than perfection, which is not mine to have yet, what do I lack?

A purpose, perhaps?

I thought I might have lost myself, the self I had seen at college, but I wondered if I ever really had a self to lose, if I had not always been a dreamer that existed in shades and shadows. 

I have lost my certainty, but not my faith; my strength, but not all victory by God's grace; my sense of worth, but not my sense of being loved.

But that is still a loss.

There's a grief that can't be spoken,

There's a pain goes on and on.

Empty words and empty letters

Now my friends are far, some gone.

There they talked of God's great goodness.

There it was they lit the flame.

There they sang about `tomorrow'

But tomorrow isn't the same.

From the college on the hilltop

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

as the world closed in at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and dreams are gone.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.

Phantom shadows on the floor.

Empty books at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What the dreaming all was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.