When We Do

Find your God.
Let him (her, if you will) in.
Read. Pray. don’t go into battle
thinking you know.
Stop. Listen. Listen some more.

Let me tell you what you will hear.

It is really quite simple.
Ignore the chaff.
The window dressing.
The shouters.
The angry.
Whittle away, bit by bit.
Find the essence
because the essence is always simple.

“All the law and prophets.”
ALL of them.
Whittled down to a few lines
and only two rules.

Two.
Love God.
Love God’s people.

Simple.
But not easy.
It is never easy.
Our fears get in the way.
Our greed gets in the way.
Our lack of faith gets in the way.
The distractions get in our way.
We, sometimes, get in our way.

But that does not distract from the truth.
Love works.
Love never tears down.
Love never belittles.
Love lifts up.
Love protects.
Love gives and shares
and does not discriminate.
It simply is.
It simply works.

but only,
only,
when we do.

About this poem.

Forgive me for a lapse into pastoralness. It’s on my heart these days. the line “All the law and prophets comes from Matthew 22: 35-40, which reads: And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” and he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

My description of love is taken directly from 1st Corinthians 13: 4-7: ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

The picture was taken in Botetourt County, Virginia.

Tom