Where is Jesus?

Poetry helps me reach into and beyond reality. The news out of Louisville, Kentucky this week hit hard for me and my friends. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are not held accountable and it is all very legal. The worst part for me was that so many Christians I know were  running to defend the rule of law as if it were any kind of legitimate justice. It made me cry. What is religion if it produces “law and order” acolytes alone? What is religion if hearts and bodies are far from free? Where is Jesus?

Here is One of Isaiah’s Poetic Answers

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

— Isaiah 58:6-9

Here is One of My Poetic Answers

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day and a night at the Villa Pauline Retreat and Spiritual Center of the Sisters of Christian Charity in  Mendenham, NJ. I rambled all over their property which was a grand estate in a neighborhood of grand estates. In response to the question that came up in my heart as I walked and later wrote in the poem below, I have a strong sense that many of the sisters who live there would definitely want Jesus, hidden in the children of the neighborhood, to use their snowy hills for wintry fun, but I doubt it ever happens. There are definitely litigious obstacles — liabilities and lack of indemnities. There are also communal obstacles — more exactly  the lack of it. In a land of gated estates, I wonder if any child would ever wander to the sister’s perfect hill and try to sled. This poetic vision helps me meditate on the deeper, beyonder realities of Mendenham and my current despair. There is a way-it-could-be better than the limits of our religious devotions, civil and otherwise. In this poem I am digging for hope. I need to rend the veil of our reality and its many, many obstacles. I need answer for “Where is Jesus?” And on this day, on retreat I saw him in snow pants.

The Convent Hill

The truest mark of true religion’s trust
Is whether children are allowed to sled
The convent’s perfect hill. Forget those musts
And shoulds and oughts, and all those clanging dead,
And tell me if there’s cocoa on the porch.

What else could that steep green slope be for
But Jesus wearing snow pants launching forth
And at the bottom sure there’s time for more?
“Again!” Toboggans full of windy tears,
“Again!” A downward rush of icy spray,
“Again!” Wet laughter’s leap right over fear,
Until the darkness overtakes the day.

So can this be or will my vision fail?
May children use your hill to rend the veil?

—–

You can listen to me read it here.

Photo and poetry by Ben White