For the brokenness of the daughter of my people
I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
—Jeremiah 8.21-22
Yes, all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
But when the pretty blonde woman on TV says everything’s fine
that’s not what she means. She’s lying.
For before all manner of things shall be well,
first we will be cruel.
For our willingness to harm,
and for those crushed by our cruelty,
my heart is broken.
For children purposefully starved,
for terror calculated as policy,
for earth scorched and abused,
horror has seized me.
For the greed and the lies of the powerful,
for the vacant stare of the destitute,
I am broken.
Let my grief be holy, my sorrow be my prayer.
Before it congeals into rage, let it weep.
This great collapse within me,
this trembling, this irruption of emptiness,
is the heart of God—not wrath, but sorrow.
For my people, and yes, I am among them,
I am broken.
And this is my power: not anger but love.
This great wound is the openness,
where flows the blood of the Lamb,
that heals the world.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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