Mark 6:53-56 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout the whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever the heard he was. And wherever he went – into villages, towns or countryside – they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
“Mark 6:53 (NIV) – When they had crossed over.” Blue Letter Bible. Web. 3 Apr, 2020. <https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/mar/6/53/p1/s_963053>.
Three years ago, I started working in a place where nearly everyone was visibly broken. There was a time, when I was afraid to get too close, for fear society’s ills would, leprosy-like, creep up my flesh. I did not yet know, how well I reside among the broken. That Jesus could walk by to find me groveling in the dirt, his tangled fringe grasped in both begging hands, and still, with eyes of compassion, see himself reflected there. Being among the ‘sick’ made me brave enough to examine my own festering wounds. And offer them up, for His cure. Today’s poems reflect moments in this ongoing journey.
Need
‘They’ lie in the street -hovel deep
need so mottled and stark
one cannot even
conceive a dream.
Our only recourse – CRY OUT
at the pain we feel…or perceive.
Entitlement stoops clumsily
…to lend a hand up?
Jesus, we wait for you
Perhaps in the waiting
our knees should hit the dust
too.
jfig 3/2020
Brokenness
She does not need me to ‘announce’
what is wrong with her.
Funny…she already knows.
Nor to endorse a cure.
Leaking ‘helper’ need
does not increase her chances of survival.
By all means – draw near.
In helping to lift her wasted hand
both hers and mine will brush His hem.
jfig 3/2019-20
Where do you find yourself in the Jesus story – among the broken, or tending wounds, perhaps? What do you see?
Roasted Words 