Unrecognizable

The landscape always changes
and I find myself in an America I do not recognize.
Not so much the places as the soul.
We have become angry
and compassion and kindness are no longer
the language of the land.
The things that have replaced them
are foreign to me. Black is white. White is black
and I am near madness some days. Lost
in my own land.

When so much is lost, there is a temptation
to succumb. To give up the culture
I was led to believe in. To carry the voices
of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy
and the preachers of my youth. To surrender
to false histories. To lash out,
to give up the helpless and save yourself,
or perhaps, to hide. There is I, am tempted to believe,
safety in hiding.

But there is not. Not for long.
Sooner or later, they will find you. Find me.
Perhaps they already have.
And so better to stand in their way,
to live and speak your truth
even if no one understands,
Even if your voice is buried in the noise

for if I believe in a God of love,
then it is not me who is lost,
but the world I live in,
and even if they burn me in their bonfires of madness
I can be the light, if only for the moment.

About this poem

The world has changed dramatically in the 11-12 years since I began my life as a pastor. I am astonished at the anger, hate, lies, and destruction that are part and parcel of the world today. I am astonished that I have been accosted and told I could not possibly be a “man of God” for loving all, even LGBTQ, immigrants, minorities, and the poor. I fear it will get worse before it gets better. I may feel lost in today’s world, but I do not think I am. A bit preachy perhaps, but I tend to write what I feel, and here we are.

The line “Black is white and white is black” refers to a time just after the French Revolution. There were many, many orphans after the Revolution and social scientists of the day often used them for psychological experiments. One such was that they raised kids to believe things that were the opposite of what they actually were. White is black. Black is white. And many other things. Then turned the kids out into the real world to see how they fared. Most of them went mad.

The photograph is of a small painting I did a couple of years ago.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom