What credit is it to your glory
to your reputation for resurrection
if you do not make something of this pain,
if you do not fertilize hope somewhere
somehow deep within this pile
of injustice and death,
if you do not
plant the dream
the actual possibility
that life doesn’t have to be death
that it can be radiant and creative and free life?
What credit is it to you if there is not
a testimony to be found of
holding on and
standing strong when
weariness was all that remained?
Rise up, O God, as your people are rising up.
Quench your people’s thirst with strength,
their rage with power and song,
their hopelessness
with love.
Make something
from this shit of suffering
and violence, do not let your name
be called upon in vain. Change the story
in the way that only you can.
Make of these wounds
a healing and
a hope
and make of us
proof of what you can do
testimonies of how God shows up
witnesses and participants
in the work that is
needed
in the redemption
that is surely coming, in the
reparations that must bloom from this
madness to shine with the glory of justice & love.
on Romans 5:2b-5