There is no blame here,
none to be put upon anyone,
we are only humans after all.
(All but one of the walls of the Temple have crumbled and they blame God.)
There are no honest people that are willing to stand up and say, "No More."
It is there, in the spaces created by deliberate silence, that the doors to his presence are opened wide.
Those are the times when evil grows,
even flourishes,
wasting away everyone's well given dignity,
there is where ideas grow,
they come and they go and they never completely die,
always coming back and taking more than they ever give,
bringing bloody ends to starry dreams.
(for those whose eyes are never fully open.)
See what it is that sends them on their way,
those whose ears are full of noise that never stops and all those sounds that never make any sense.
Woe to you and woe to me,
never being able to see beyond the end of their own noses.
He rushes into all things always trying to distract and pull apart.
(shreds of news and discarded thoughts once thought relevant.)
When he went out into the desert,
he was there,
appearing ot him as if out of nowhere,
wasting no time,
preying upon his identity.
(If you really are the Son fo God...)
Preying on his hunger,
desire for power,
deisre for riches,
to give up the servant life and to reject the will of God.
(those voices later shouted, "Crucify him, Crucify him... We have no King but Caesar...")
Not once, twice, but three times,
denying him, swearing,
"I don't know him!"
Betrayal of innicent blood,
end of a starry eyed dream,
for thirty pieces of silver.
"What you are going to do...Do quickly."
Asking,
"If you really are the Son of God...would he really ask you tro die?"
To be torn apart, limb from limb, by this crazy pack of wolves.
"Do you really believe?"
(Look, your King comes riding on a donkey...Now he comes carrying a cross.)
(Look, your betrayer is near, even reaching out to kiss you, he even calls you Rabbi.)
"I know who you are,
I was there when God threw you out of heaven...falling like lightning."
You, nor anything you do, or promise, cannot exceed the joyful aftermath that comes to those who believe,
the Son of Man will come on the clouds of heaven and you will be crushed under his heel.
(you cannot destroy God's Temple as long as God lives there.)
From the desert you departed from me for only a while, waiting like hte thief you are for a more opportune time to come.
(as always you came to me at my lowest.)
Asking if I really believed,
"Who is you father?'
speaking of the too heavy burden of sin and offering me a false life line, telling me to depend upon myself.
(As if myself was enough to rely on after denying from where I came.)
You have no power over me if not given to you from beyond.
The presence of evil is sometimes banal,
sometimes it is glamorous and flashy,
grandiose and shallow at the same time,
it's there whenver someone washes their hands and a lamb is led off to the slaughter,
(especially the unborn, innocent, torn from their mother's womb.)
I am there whenever innocence is shattered and stolen,
when self is woshipped and others are ignored.
I will put you behind me,
you will never step back from the front,
up front and center,
looking for all the attention you can get,
never understanding what God says,
never understanding what God means,
when he says,
"the first shall be last and the last shall be first."
T.S. Deary
3 March - 15 March 2023