Storm Surge

In the end,
will you be faithful?
That is question.

When the storm has come and gone,
when what you thought was precious has been stripped away,
when you sleep in darkness wondering if the lights will ever come back on,
when your life in the flash of lightning reverts back to the everyday of your sisters and brothers in the warzone,
when your plane to those destinations is grounded by the thunder’s roar?

Will you awake to new resolve for justice?
Will you spend less time before the screen and more time present to loved ones and those in need of it?
Will you leave the ground to alight among the troubled?
Will you listen to them?

Will the power that comes on be in you,
through you,
glowing out through your eyes,
electrifying,
filling you with a compassion so compelling
you become a wire
among many
channeling
love and peace
to the world?

June 2, 2015

#awakeToJustice #BelovedCommunity #channelingLove #ChristianReflection #compassion #compassionInAction #ContemplativeWriting #darknessAndLight #faithfulLiving #groundedPlanes #innerPower #Justice #Listening #loveAndPeace #Peacebuilding #PeaceGrooves #powerOutage #presence #propheticPoetry #renewal #resolve #ScreenTime #serviceToOthers #SocialJustice #soulWork #spiritualElectricity #SpiritualReflection #stormImagery #ThePowerOfLove #thunderstorm #warzone

Jesus Wept

When Jesus drew near and saw the city,
He wept over it.

Not because the marble had cracked,
though it had.

Not because the columns trembled,
though they did.

Not because thunder gathered over the Potomac
and lightning stitched judgment
across the bruised sky.

He wept because the people had forgotten
the things that make for justice and peace.

He saw a cage raised like an altar.
He saw bodies offered up for entertainment.
He saw empire smiling gleefully from the front row,
wrapped in flags and gold and cameras.
He saw the powerful cheering
while the wounded became spectacle.

He saw Rome wearing a new suit.

The coliseum had crossed the ocean of the past
and found a home
under domes and monuments, white washed tombs,
beneath the watchful stone faces
of men who spoke of liberty
while the crowd screamed for blood.

And Jesus wept.

He wept for the fighter,
for the broken hand,
the swelling eye,
the mother watching,
the child learning
that violence can be sold
if the lights are bright enough.

He wept for the rulers
who called cruelty strength,
who mistook domination for glory,
who bowed before the oldest idol:
power without mercy.

He wept for Washington,
city of promises and wounds,
city of prayers and prisons,
city of pale stone
and scarlet history.

“If only you had known,” He whispered,
“even now, on this day,
the things that make for peace.”

But the roar was too loud.

The screens flashed.
The fists rose.
The empire cheered.
And somewhere above the cage,
a storm began to gather.

The lightning did not strike first.
The rain did.

A cleansing rain.
A sorrowing rain.
A baptism for a nation
that had confused freedom
with the right to devour.

And Jesus stood outside the gates,
tears on His face,
hands open,
heart broken,

still calling:

Come out of the cage.
Come down from the throne.
Come away from Rome.

Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are those
who refuse to be entertained
by another human being’s ruin.

And Washington did not yet understand.

So Jesus wept, tears falling in the rain.

#ancientRome #apocalypticArt #brokenEmpire #Capitol #ChristianArt #ChristianNationalism #cleansingRain #Empire #faithAndPolitics #JesusOverWashington #JesusWept #Lament #Mercy #modernColiseum #Nonviolence #peace #peacemakers #politicalLament #prayerForAmerica #propheticArt #propheticWitness #Repentance #sacredGrief #spectacleOfViolence #SpiritualReflection #stormImagery #symbolicIllustration #thingsThatMakeForPeace #UFC250 #Violence #WashingtonDC #WashingtonMonument #WhiteHouse

At the Table in Thunder

Here now, late at night, alone at the table, I draw to the sound of thunder and the rattle of rain against the windows.

The house is dark except for this small pool of light. Outside, the world is being washed, struck, shaken. Inside, my hand moves slowly across the page, making marks no one has asked for, no one is waiting for, and yet somehow they feel necessary.

The thunder speaks in a language older than words. The rain answers in thousands of small syllables. And I, with my pen, add my thin human line to the chorus.

Perhaps this, too, is prayer: not asking, not explaining, not performing. Just being awake with the storm. Just making something while the night makes music. Just sitting at the table as the rain reminds me that the world is still alive, still trembling, still being drawn by a hand larger than mine.

#artAsPrayer #ContemplativeArt #creativeReflection #Creativity #drawingPractice #lateNightDrawing #nightWriting #poeticProse #prayerAndCreativity #presence #quietHoliness #Rain #ReflectiveEssay #sacredImagination #sacredOrdinary #Solitude #SpiritualReflection #stormImagery #tableAsAltar #thunderstorm