Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Jesus in the Margins


No church or government
should insulate itself
from raw human need

Mangers on Wall Street
fuel peaceful acts of protest
This is the place
where Jesus was born
   
Hunger for freedom in Egypt
fuels desperate acts of protest
This is the place
where Muhammad was born

Beggars plentiful
as black flies on city dung heaps
too weary to protest
This is the place
where Buddha was born

Focus our third eye
really see
our eyes
never to be closed
sheltered from the unedited
again

Our Mother groans
with remembered birth pains
In gathering we remember
where we were born

Hear the whispered confessions
of lifelong selfishness
Hear the whispered prayers
on dying children’s lips
Pleading
that we make different choices

Step back
to widen the circle
Be slow
to enter the center
Where the warmth,
water and safety are
Need less, share more

There are others
waiting to be beckoned in
to the possibility of
hospitality without a home

Salve our broken souls
with love so gentle
it evokes the susurration
of a thousand million
angels’ wings ascending
to Heaven’s throne

Humankind in societies
must embrace a different path
says the king who walks among us

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