Poem based on Mark 8:31-38 2nd Sunday in Lent

These words are so hard to hear

So hard

Why?

--why must our master walk in this direction

Why?

--when we have left our families and work

do we have to hear these words of doom and death

Why?

This talk makes no sense

We could have it all

We could live

We could live in a world so kind

With none of the pain

We left behind

A world far better than any have seen

A world that for many is just a dream

We could have it

We could have it all

The power that comes with the ones

Who lead

And show the way

That people want to follow

They really want to follow you

Away from Romans

--and poverty

----and hardship

we could be a great power

A Nation

--that is looked up to and feared

----by nations

Master!

--Rabbi!

-------listen to what you senses

-------and to what the people are saying

-------listen

and Jesus turns

and faces all

--who have come this far

--and hung on every word

--and lived on every morsel of life

----dropped from his lips

--who have lived as they have never lived before

--with a hope they had never known

Listen, this is my Son

His eyes said

As he looked through the crowd

In a stare of ice

And the thoughts turned to those unexplained moments

That raised the questions

And the hearts raced with fear

--as they knew

----once more

they were in for something more

than they had ever known

--or dreamed

----or bargained for

in the collective memory of all creation

GET--------THEE--------BEHIND--------ME

------(take)---------(up)---------------(thy)--------(cross)

with you temptress minds of humanity

and live

LIVE

--beyond the limits of your perceived reality

and a world that

-----changes

--hatred for hatred for hatred

until all see only the gain in their world.

See and feel and hear that glimmer

That goes beyond the mere pretense of happiness

And see the children’s faces

--for what they could be

LIVE

--(and follow me)