Thursday 26 March 2015

Dare to Enter

Sorting through a not-as-organised-as-I-aspire-for-it-to-be My Documents folder recently, I came across a couple of poems which I don't think have ever made it as far as this blog. Not surprising given how unreliable I have been at keeping this updated in the last year. 

A lot of my poetry, you may have noticed, has distinctly theological themes, and this one is directly inspired by a biblical text:

Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." ...
... "Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times"
(Mark 3:31-35; 4:8)

I think this text is less to do with who people are, and much more to do with where they are. For me, it is about those who stand on the edges, who wait at the threshold, who want to position themselves where there's an easy way out; and it is about those who step inside, who take a front row seat, who choose to put themselves where it is much harder to just get up and leave.
This poem was written last summer, but perhaps, as we prepare to enter Holy Week and find our place in ongoing story of the Passion, now is an appropriate time to post it.

Do not
Stand at the door and wait
But come
Dare
To cross the threshold
Come
Dare to take your place
To sit with one another
To listen to my voice

Do not
Watch through the open window
But come
Dare
To enter a new place
Come
Among a different people
Those you do not know
Whether to fear or dare to love

Do not
Send me messages from afar
But come
Dare
To find this inside place
Come
Out of your comfort zone
And into my presence
And live this life

And here
Inside
Become what you are called to be
Be
My family
Be
As one

And then
Together
We will go out
As this
The inner life
Leads out
To where
Your seeds will grow
And your grain will be bountiful.

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