Within Christ’s own body
God has created one new humanity
in place of the two, thus making peace.
—Ephesians 2.15
Unless you can feel it,
the one sinew running through our breath,
the one nerve in which we all throb,
unless you know in the worst terrorists
yourself,
and see in the most foreign face
your own heart looking out at the world,
unless you know in your gut
the demagogue, the refugee, the infidel
as part of yourself,
unless you feel in the loveless the Beloved
surely as in you,
you do not yet inhabit your body
and can’t yet be
the one
we already are.
—July 18, 2018