Day 216, where did Shiloh go?

I tried to console and comfort someone who loved a little boy that drowned this weekend and I realized there weren't real words, no platitudes would do, she was hurting. She was missing the home of the thing that left. A soul moves on, lives on but the place we spend our time loving it changes when someone dies and nothing replaces that. I was reading 1 Samuel 6 when the Philistines take the ark of the covenant (the very presence of God) away from Shiloh and Israel all together. Israel grieved it's loss and eventually the Philistines brought the ark back to Israel but somewhere along the way Shiloh is never mentioned again, it was destroyed and the ark never rested there again...

Shiloh


You disappeared like Shiloh

a center point, a gathering

was your tiny soul, a tabernacle

for our joy and hope

but a Philistine fate has

robbed our hearts

walked away with our mercy

bobbing up and down in rhythm

to their march, a vanishing point

so the sun sets and grief rises

a keening erupts from our throats

this ark, this covenant is without

it's home, it's presence a frightful

thing indeed. For an ark without it's

tabernacle feels godless and empty

and a heart without it's joy the same

and in the travels of this Holy thing

a nation soon repents, a covenant is

restored but Shiloh, Oh Shiloh!

Where did you go?