Wailing Against Walls- a Poem by Br. Coyote, OEF

We pray that we never become accustomed to

seeing the fallen bodies

of our sisters and brothers and lovers

on anyone’s killing floor.

We pray that we get over the feeling that our

entire nation

has moved backward a half century or more

when some still thought they could take a life

because they thought it expendable

before their own ideology.

We pray that people of another strong faith are

not scapegoated

or disparaged with the same sweeping

categories that are ignorant of the likes of the very

lives of those we have so regrettably lost

for we cannot bear to see more suffering.

Now we must get down on our wounded knees and

weep, ululate a sorrow

that words can never capture: why must we

have to go through this

again and again, seeing bright lives snuffed out

like candles set to glow in a sanctuary that

are then suddenly ravaged by a hurricane?

Creator, please wrench out of me any remaining

molecule that does not

fully embrace the dignity of every life

different than my own, with whom

I share your blood-spattered scarred & sacred

ground with all here on earth.

About John Michael

Pastor, teacher, partner, dog walker, gardener, conservationist, contemplative, hiker. Currently serving as a Formation Coordinator for OEF and Dean of VT/NY conference of Lutheran Synod.

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