Even the dogs

         “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
                   —Mark 7.28

From the slime that’s been slung,
through the epithet thicket,
through the tangle of shouldn’t
and couldn’t and can’t,
with love and guts and feist
she rises up, not with a desperate plea
but simply knowing more, for the moment,
than Jesus does of what is possible,
and what is right.
She names the slight, slingshots the slur,
paints the gallows, exposes the lie—
and claims her human place.
And Jesus learns a thing or two,
about her, about those pagans,
about himself. About grace.

It’s not Jesus who does the miracle. She does.
The power is in her faith in herself, and her daughter,
and their place in the house of grace.
The healing is in her her rising up.

And you, sister: what have you been called?
What table have you been shoved under?
What crumbs are yours, that will multiply
like loaves and fishes?
Name them.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

August 30, 2021

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