A set of poems in response to September 11

Longing is What We Are Doing

I.

We know better.

The schooled part of us looks at the towers,

one hundred ten stories X 2 pulverized,

and says,

“God was not in this.”

The schooled part of us smells the spent jet fuel

and says,

“God did not will this.”

But the part of us that could sense and feel things

long before we started to school,

the part of us that remembers

the unspeakable safety of being held in someone’s arms,

of being nursed and comforted,

of having our hair stroked by a warm, friendly hand,

that part of us longs to be that safe again.

Longing is what we are doing.

Longing to have a place to rest tonight and tomorrow

and a host of tomorrows.

Longing to believe that jets take you to your family

not from your family.

Longing to believe that the ancient olive trees of Jerusalem

and the mountains of Afghanistan

have seen their last skirmish and heard their last bomb.

Longing to believe that we will be ransomed

from the captivity of our own fears.

Longing to believe that there will be a day

when all people are bound in one heart and one mind.

And when our nearly unbearable longing bursts out,

and we use our own words and our own sighs to cry out

some today-version of “O Come, O Come Emmnauel,”

we may hear, if our hearts are tuned just right,

that God does not swoop in to rescue us from this mess

but comes, skin-bound, to call us and lead us to something different;

something that has less to do with flaming jets and leaping screams

and more to do with lions and lambs.

II.

The trees of Eden dripped with the nectar of promise.

It was ours for the taking,

as long as we understood that God is God

and we are not.

But Adam, our first cousin,

put down the cup of nectar and tried God’s chair.

And we’ve been trying to sit there ever since.

But instead of allowing that primal nectar to be

nothing but the sticky reminder of our over-reaching,

God made another promise,

and wrapped the promise in skin

and gave some holy fools the curiosity to go look for it.

God sent the infant world-changer

to put the earth in reverse.

The old thing was:

powerful- good

weak- bad

revenge- justified

forgiveness- for losers

But the starlight that the fools followed brought them

to the source of the new thing:

lions and lambs- pals

humility- honored

thrones- suspect

With the old

we were the living dead.

We had breath but no life.

With the new

we are the reborn

never to die again.

Thank God for reverse.

III.

What do you need for a birth?

A mother, some hot water and lots of towels.

That’s what the movies say.

A video recorder. a digital camera and a cell phone.

That’s what we say,

as if showing the results instantly is the point.

But if results are all that matters,

then labor counts for nothing...

and waiting counts for nothing...

and dreaming of what will be counts for nothing...

and drinking in the sacrament of that moment counts for nothing.

What do you need for this birth,

the one the holy fools followed the star to see?

You need some grouch to say that there’s no room for a birth like this,

so that God can re-define how much room there really is,

and who has a claim to that room.

You need hay, and you need disoriented cows

who don’t understand what this warm thing is

that is blocking access to their supper,

so that God can use what is completely ordinary

to do a cosmic paradigm shift.

You need two unknowns,

two walk-ons in the drama of life;

a common, unsophisticated, semi-marginal couple

to say “OK” to bearing and naming a miracle.

And you need a God who is love all through

to set the stage,

to call the actors,

and to cajole us into believing such a story could be true.

IVa.

What child is this?

And who am I because of this child?

Am I open to the world-in-reverse?

Or do I really want to cling

to the intoxicating power of routine,

even if it is slowly anaesthetizing my soul?

Will I make this child peripheral,

an accessory in the wardrobe of my life?

Or will I invite this child to live

in the home which is my heart?

IVb.

Which silence will we choose?

Will it be the silence of awe,

the quiet so intense that the voice of God,

the barely audible yet penetrating sound of grace,

is all that can be heard?

Will it be the silence that comes

when nothing else on earth matters,

when life is entirely focused,

when the senseless finally becomes plain?

Or will it be the silence of fear,

the drugged silence of submission to what is,

the dreadful silence when que sera, sera

is all we know how to say

and everything matters except what matters most?

Will it be the silence which follows miracle,

or the silence which signals resignation?

Will it be the silence which follows the angel song,

when uncontrolled joy is not far behind,

or the silence which follows Herod’s scheming;

the silence of being mesmerized by evil’s icy grin?

Choose, O people of God.

Choose the silence of awe.

V.

There will be a day..

There will be a day

when walls and gates are considered as relics of a troubled past,

found only by archaeologists,

not purpose-built by us

to treasure up our stuff on earth,

when parks are pentecostal

because the play of children

has a language all its own,

when greed is endangered,

and every town and every city

has a full time fool

whose job is to help people laugh

and dream

and cry

and laugh again.

There will be a day when needles are for vaccines,

when clothes are laundered and money is not,

when music makes people dance,

when talk is rich, not cheap,

when courtesy, disguised as love,

decides to open up and lose control.

And on that day,

our longing will yield to unutterable joy.

Until then, Holy One,

grant us your peace.

©2001 John Thornburg