God,
My. heart broke a little bit more
for the children in Iowa
fresh off their winter break
shattered by a gunman
who thought violence was the only answer
I thought it might be too numb
after a pandemic
after the attack/war in Ukraine
after the horrific genocide in Gaza*
After a kidnapping one campsite over
from where my same aged child
was at Boy Scout camp
after letting go of my church job
after a job let go of me
after numerous other shootings
I wondered if grief would start to taste
bitter
like too old coffee
or chocolate
on my tongue
But the salt of my tears
are refreshing
as they drip upon my arm
in an impossible angle
…………..
…………..
And the though comes
unbidden
that maybe
…………..
…………..
maybe
this time
there will be enough of us
tired of
violence
to be heard
as I weep
for the violence of the world
I think of Miriam,
mother of Moses
and the amazing midwives
who protected babies of another people
of the Wise Magi–crafty enough
to avoid Herod,
during the season of epiphany
I think about,
the bravery
of being vulnerable
and here I am…………..
waiting …………..
…………..
…………..
…………..
for our hearts
to break…………..
…………..
enough…………….
…………..
…………..
to change…………..
…………..
*Please note, my heart is also breaking for Israel, and the horrors done by Hamas and the way it rationalizes antisemitism and apocalyptic evangelism everywhere, this conflict is terrible, and it is really hard to talk bout the complexity of what is going on here. However, the US seems to be complicit in the particular aspect I am naming.
Feel free to use/adapt/change with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”
Author: katyandtheword
Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ.
She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible.
"Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal.
Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.
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