Why is it like this?
Why are human beings so---like this? We are so-----there is so much---pain. It hurts to care about people. It hurts to even care. My mother tried. She had a best friend. They did so much together---and then, there was something, and my mom flew to Switzerland and tried to help her, and the friend didn't want to listen to her.
And then there was loss.
Why?
It hurts too much, it hurts too much,
to care.
Like stretching out your hands to feel
and finding you can hurt,
and
your touch not help, not feel, not intercede another's soul
and losing the friend
Why did you even make us to love, God?
It hurts too much
We hope too much
and fall, fall
God, I don't want to care anymore. I don't want to feel all this anymore. It hurts too much to love people. And feel loss.
Jesus, why did you do this to us? Why do you even command us to love? To send us out into the world, to maim ourselves? To find ourselves in this choked room where people cannot hear my voice, calling out over and over, in a hoarse lecturing judgmental monotone?
Why bother, why even bother to love?
Is it not an incredible vulnerability, to love. To lose. To be the loser. Lord. Why. Why.
Lord, why? Love for you, was so much loss. You lost your little one, and he went, far into the messed up dark world of people longing for love, and stretched his hand out into it.
Stretched out his little hand in Bethlehem, in a cow-trough we put him in, because there was no one who wanted to shelter him in a house that night.
And you stretched you hand out again, as you carved tables for your brother Jews. And hammered, and squared, and lathed the edges. You stretched your hand out, in a village town, and lived and broked bread and kept the Shabbat's, and studied the Torah Scroll, together, growing 20 years of quiet life.
And the Talmud writes, he was an idoloter, and any Jew that follows him, no longer is a Jew, but join him as the apostasized.
And you stretched your hand out, to touch the leper's flesh, and felt it grow, whole, beneath your touch.
And you stretched out your hand, and healed hte blind man's eyes, and then he went and told your enemies on you.
And you stretched out your hand, and touched the homeless men, who mutter your words amid pleas for money and cigarrettes wandering hte dirty streets.
And you stretched out you hand, on some Judean grown wood cut by a Roman lathe. And there among the Pastors and Bureaucrats laid down to wait the nail be driven through it.
And the hammer falls, the the flesh of the child God sent, splits beneath the stroke.
Blood spurts out, like the blood of the goat, sent out to have its head split.
Blood flows down the old wood of that simple tree, lathed by precise Roman hands.
And the Bureaucrats step back a little disgusted with the whole thing, and the people stir in their places. We didn't want him here, didn't want that man here.
And we turn our backs and trudge down that hill, except for a few hysterical women. Who follow him as if he were alive, and one of them, poor girl, a mess, sits with tear emptied glassy eyes, unable to leave the burial site, staring.
'don't waste your time' we say, touching her shaking shoulder, looking into her shell shocked eyes. 'Just go home, get yourself a cup of tea'
God it hurts too much to care. And the baby's got splintered hands now, rough man's hands that are cold, with big holes busted in them.
And before we did him in, he said
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
It hurts enough to balance life the way it is--and keep---from being broken open and hurt and lose---why do you come here and tell us to love and lose more?! You thought you were 'helping'? We don't need that kind of help. We don't need more of that kind of stuff in this kind of a world. Don't try to make it hurt more with all that.
Why should we care, God? Why should we damn well care what you send. Unwanted "gifts" are a burden. Its the same as punishment. Sorry about your baby. You shouldn't have sent him in the first place, if you knew this was going to happen. Its your fault. We don't want it God, take it back, here you go. Bye. Don't look at me like that. Its your fault. You knew what I'm like. Go away. Its the way of things. People are like this, God, I'm sorry. We're like this.
Then---my God the ground is shaking, shaking, the sky splits, and
I find, myself, looking into a tomb busted through--by---what is that light? My eyes! Blinded, blinded by a light so bright it burns, bright as fire on the wings of the morning, bright as the wings of the Cherubim, bright as the dawn over the Euphrates River, when Hizqiel fell on his face and saw----
I am falling falling, and can't--won't look up. But He's there. The busted hand--strong fingers-- clears the hair from my eyes, lifts my face till I see him in the eyes. His eyes, staring at me, staring into me, looking into mine. His eyes.
'Follow me.'
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
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