street preacher

A pocketful of change dropped in a dirty, broken cup is enough to illicit a smile from those cracked swollen lips. His dirty hands hungrily tally my trivial change, the stuff from the bottom of my bag, not even enough to get a hot drink with. But he smiles anyways...his smile, too wide for his face, opens up the cut on his lip exposing ruby red flesh. He runs shaky fingers through unwashed hair, and turns his head to look up at me through one good eye; the other is swollen shut, a bruised tattoo of street violence. From his torn mouth he whispers "bless you darlin" like a priest to a parishioner spoken from his unholy pulpit of dirty rags. My tithe accounted for... He turns back to the deaf assembly on the streets, preaching to a walking congregation. He speaks his message of hunger and hurt, of desperation and dirt, and like any church of late they do not heed his message. His message has become a chant, a looping dejected line that has lost its meaning "could you spare some change"...

...if only I could give him more than pennies...

How shall I hold on to my soul, so that it does not touch yours?

How shall I lift it gently up over you on to other things?

I would so very much like to tuck it away

among long lost objects in the dark, in some quiet, unknown place,

somewhere which remains motionless when your depths resound.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes I think I will always be that little girl hiding in her closet, afraid to feel the outside world. Pushed back into the farthest corner, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, trying to tuck away part of myself "among long lost objects in the dark, in some quiet unknown place." hiding in the darkness measuring my breaths as if the number of them might add up to a different total than the sum of the day's events.

Keep up your bright swords for the dew will rust them....

Sometimes its easier to fight than to give up, sometimes the battle is so consuming that to lay down our weapon seems impossible, we fight, mindlessly hacking away at an enemy we do not know how to fight, we fight till the sweat beads on our foreheads, till our limbs are heavy with fatigue, and we can barely raise our arms to strike the next blow...

We stand deep in the woods now and the dark shadows overwhelm us, the underbrush tears at our clothing and still...we fight. We beat against it....blindly casting about our weapons....no longer aware of how near the enemy really is......

And all the while... through the furor and the chaos....as if whispered on the wind we hear

"Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"...

We pause.

Sword in mid swing...

but just as quickly as the wind brought the promises of The voice to us... the overwhelming sound of the battle rises to a tempest roar and tears away that sweet voice that promised us rest and we forget that moment of release... and trudge on again....

and Yet in the beating of our own heart we hear it still... like an echo in the cave of our empty hearts...."for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" ... " my yoke is easy and my burden is light"......

Oh that we could cast off this heavy burden!!

that another could shoulder its weight... but the enemy is at our gates!!!..... he prowls as a Lion at the posts.... seeking whom he may devour... and we tremble at the terrible fear of him....

then somewhere in the deepest part of ourselves we hear a defiant proclamation....

"For I HAVE overcome the WORLD, and greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, no weapon formed against me shall prosper, for I will shut the very mouths of liars, and I will make your enemies a footstool to be trod upon, and every knee shall bow, and every mouth confess... that I AM Lord"....