Dare to Enter

Sorting through a not-as-organised-as-I-aspire-for-it-to-be My Documents folder recently, I came across a couple of poems which I don't think have ever made it as far as this blog. Not surprising given how unreliable I have been at keeping this updated in the last year. 

A lot of my poetry, you may have noticed, has distinctly theological themes, and this one is directly inspired by a biblical text:

Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." ...

... "Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times"

(Mark 3:31-35; 4:8)

I think this text is less to do with who people are, and much more to do with where they are. For me, it is about those who stand on the edges, who wait at the threshold, who want to position themselves where there's an easy way out; and it is about those who step inside, who take a front row seat, who choose to put themselves where it is much harder to just get up and leave.

This poem was written last summer, but perhaps, as we prepare to enter Holy Week and find our place in ongoing story of the Passion, now is an appropriate time to post it.

Do not

Stand at the door and wait

But come

Dare

To cross the threshold

Come

Dare to take your place

To sit with one another

To listen to my voice

Do not

Watch through the open window

But come

Dare

To enter a new place

Come

Among a different people

Those you do not know

Whether to fear or dare to love

Do not

Send me messages from afar

But come

Dare

To find this inside place

Come

Out of your comfort zone

And into my presence

And live this life

And here

Inside

Become what you are called to be

Be

My family

Be

As one

And then

Together

We will go out

As this

The inner life

Leads out

To where

Your seeds will grow

And your grain will be bountiful.