a time-travelling poem prayer
No! No! Please stop…PLEASE… P-L-E-A-S-E?!
More flogging, more scourging, more torture
Relentless. Merciless. Sadistic. Diabolical.
There’s blood splatter everywhere…on me too
Can someone please stop this? Anyone?
They are going to kill Him! This is murder!
His pain unbearable, His suffering unspeakable
My operating system is crashing…
My stiff muscles, about to snap like twigs
My tender heart, about to explode like a bomb
Like a grand mal seizure, I shake, uncontrollably
Like a forced-open sluice, I sob, unstoppably
Finally, I manage to rein it in, I have much to do
I get a grip on my sobbing, I compose myself
Volatile heart, spasming muscles in check
I write and write until my soul is drained
Where the hell were you, Simon Peter?
Bodacious, bold, brazen and brave…oh, sure
Did you trade your confidence for cowardice?
He chose you to be the rock upon which
He intends to build His church, but
in this moment, right here, you were
nothing more than a teeny tiny pebble
You disowned Him and then fled like a fool
And where were the rest of you big, bulky men
who, just moments earlier, fiercely argued about
which one of you is the greatest among you?
Petulant & pitiful!
*SPOILER ALERT* The Greatest among you was
just brutally murdered! He is in the grave, but He
will rise again and then our resurrected Lord will
appear, not to the men, but to the women first
Oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer,
I weep for the state of Your church
more than 2,000 years later….
Still so much insecurity & indifference,
arrogance & abuse, fake & failures, all
wrapped up in petty politics. Almost as if
it was indeed built on a pebble and not a rock.
Yet, You choose love over hate and I choose to follow You.
I’m so sorry for my angry outburst! I cannot understand how
You managed to love and forgive amidst betrayal, abuse,
humiliation, corruption and apathy.
But You are my Hope and I trust in You.
Thank You that I am always safe with You.
Thank You that You silence the oppressors
and uplift the silenced.
Not my will, but Yours be done.
Amen.
Who among us — smaller than viruses before the face of God — will ever understand how Jesus Christ ”managed to love and forgive amidst betrayal, abuse, humiliation, corruption and apathy?”
Lord, Your love was not poured out for mankind as an abstraction. It was poured out for me. I am a microcosm of depravity, wretchedness and self-will. Lord Jesus — I do not deserve Your grace. But You give it. And for that I thank You.
Thank you, Lulu, for deep reflection and a spirit that listens. This poem is the end-product of years of powerful spiritual emotion recollected in tranquility [Wordsworth] You are not merely writing poems. You are confronting the reader with truth. And truth lives on forever.
Dear Maretha, thank you for your faithful support and invaluable participation, your wisdom is priceless!
Dear Lulu
Just when giving up and going with the flow seems like the only and most desirable option, this pops up… And then one realises that working on your inner strength is actually the only option now if you don’t want to be a Simon Peter in your own eyes.
Because giving up was not part of your building blocks.
And to be able to look in the mirror and know you did your best to make things better, and more in line with what is Right, is all that you can live with.
Thank you
Dear Carla, thank you for sharing your reflective thoughts with us!