Dear friends,
I wrote you a poem about Love. It’s a little long and it doesn’t rhyme, and this isn’t the sort of thing I usually do so I feel a little out of my element… but more than one of you answered my sermon about Love this week by sending me poetry, so I thought I’d send another one back out to you and to the world.
These love commands drip from the pages of the Bible
Like rich sticky honey gluing the pages together
Everywhere you turn God commands: Love one another!
There’s not a page free of the dripping goodness
And when you open it to read, you come away with fingers all sticky and sweet
Love running through the pages like a really slow river,
like a sweet scented trap
Careful when you read, you might end up falling in love by accident.
And in this metaphor I think I’m probably the bear
Who smells the honey and wants to eat it
Yes
– I say in my best bear voice –
I want to love –
I want to fall in love with the world day after day like God does
But right now my paws are stuck in the honey sweetness and I don’t know what to do
How can love be a command?
How can they tell us “love one another” as if all we need to do is decide,
as if once we decide to do it, the love will happen all by itself?
How can love not be a command?
How could I turn away from love as if there were anything else that mattered?
Who could look at their life and say
“eh, I think what I need is less love”?
Sometimes I find myself in a crowd and the other people are right by my elbows
but they are also a world away and I hear that sweet ringing command “love one another”
and I say AS IF.
As if it were so easy, as if there were instructions to follow, turn here, step forward & fall down the stairs, you’ll be in love
Meanwhile my feet have not moved
And the command sits heavy like the weight of the world.
Sometimes I find myself alone and the other people are a world away
but they are also right by my elbows and I hear that sweet ringing command “love one another”
and it’s so easy. Just step out of my own way and let the love roll through like God’s thundering presence.
Careful, you might get swept down the stairs and fall in love with the world by accident.
But today I stand here with my hands just a little sticky,
I’ve been tasting, trying, wondering about love
I wonder if you’ve been wondering too
I wonder what we’re going to do
And I wonder where all those bees are going.
Every Blessing,
Talitha