Noise

God, sculpt upon my tongue

the quiet prayer, for a meadow

can be burgeoning with noise, a cackle

of ideas like so many grasses vying for the sunlight.

Let us stop pointing out what isn’t Christ and stare upon

the still photograph of a mother and her child or the humble outstretched hand of the giver, the attention of the powerless

on pushing forward some kind of greater good, however small.

For there is nothing less Christlike than pointing out what isn’t Christ in others, whether left or right. This kind of judgement isn’t forward-thinking or progressive in any way except to diminish or censor or damn. This kind of judgement conserves nothing, preserves nothing that is worth remembering.

How are any of us truly among the slighted? We have been saved by grace.

I think today, I will drink a glass of cool water and I will walk in quietude and stew over the fewest of words: the baptism of my soul into the unspoken waters of life. Delete my thoughts, Lord, and fill my mind with love. Make my brain a heart, apolitical, not logical, just so ordinary, part of the human race, where everybody gets it wrong.

The great commission must now haunt Your Church. There has only ever been one thing to do. Let us be about the doing of it now.