One day I'll weep

“And with every step I took it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry.”

 James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

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I sit and stare blankly at the screen

my mind is empty

my hands are still

I do not know how long I sit this way

My mind,

My heart

My soul

An anaesthetized wound

I am preoccupied

With children, hands on their heads, feeling another shooting

Their faces, stunned and empty

Are the faces of my grandchildren

My soul is assailed

By the evil

And greed

By the disregard for people

That leaps out of my computer

That flows from my television

Tearing at the very fabric of who I am

I move from anger, to disgust

From fear to (yes I admit it) hate

From shock to sadness to profound grief

It is bad enough that people in power abuse it

That people with privilege exploit it

It is bad enough that people do ungodly things

In the name of God

But what shatters me

Is that so many do not care

They do

Not

Care

About the poor

The vulnerable

The hurting

The aged

The ill

They simply do not care

As long as they believe (and it often is not fact)

That what is happening benefits them

Protects them

Empowers them

They don’t care if people are left behind

They don’t care if children get shot in school

They don’t care if children are separated from their parents

They don’t care if refugees are denies refuge

They don’t care if the earth is destroyed, bit by bit

They don’t care I millions of species are in danger of extinction

They don’t care that the Constitution is trampled

They don’t care that people born LGBTQI are demonized and oppressed

They don’t care about the life of an 11 year old rape victim

They don’t care about Native Americans who are systematical oppressed

They just don’t care

As long as they gain (even if it is only for a short while)

As long as they feel safe

Or powerful

And this makes my heart hurt

This is a wound that will not go away

and so I sit an stare

my soul numb

hoping it will all go away

hoping that people will wake up to the Sacred

hoping against hope

trying to follow the path of Father Abraham

fighting to believe

there are no easy answers

people will jump in with formula faith and insist I just need to have more faith

people will tell me to trust

people will insist I simply do not know the big picture

(and if I did I would be fine)

But I lament

As did the author of Lamentations

As did the Psalmist

As did almost every prophet (every real prophet), ever

As did Jesus in the Garden

As did Paul, persistently tormented

I sit, and

I lament

And then I walk

Left foot,

Right foot

Left foot breathe

I watch the sun set, and the skies turn golden

I watch young, curious calves,  gather to

Google at Finn the dog (who is after all just their size)

If feel the breeze

And smell the pines

And the numbness resolves

And I can feel again

Breathe again

My heart still hurt

My mind still rages

But there is a place

Deep in my soul

Where the Sacred lives

And against all hope

I believe

And so tomorrow I will travel to the State Capital

And Thursday I will chair meetings

And Friday I will return to a former church

And do the funeral of a friend

And Saturday I will try

To grab that people of hope

And write a sermon

About ironically, hearing the voice of Jesus

And so I will walk

And walk

And walk

On foot in front of the other

Out of the numbness

And back into life.