On Keeping Score

 

On Keeping Score

(“Then Samson called to the Lord, ‘Almighty, please remember me! God, give me strength just one more time! Let me get even with the Philistines for at least one of my two eyes.’” Judges 16:28)

Tell me what I do not know,
show me what wells up like mud
from a storm drain. And we shall
call it
god.

More or less,
strength is not in hair or prayer,
thick arms or armaments,
ornaments or hurricanes,
certainty or artillery.
A thousand battlegrounds filled to the brim
cannot replace an eye or help you begin again.

 Because we have heard it said an eye for an eye,
we have seen it played so loud an ear for an ear,
we have forced the issue until everyone is dead.

Instead we are invited to offer the cheek,
to trudge an extra mile,
to take off our shirt
and give it to the thief who stole our coat
right off our backs.
Not exactly a winning strategy.

We should let our hair grow long again,
rehearse the vengeance prayer again
until god finally answers and the pillars
fall again
while the waters mourn with blood.

Or we can lose our taste for keeping score,
stop wasting our moments in violence and storms,
roll out the carpet for villains and ruffians,
set the table for democrats and republicans.

“Almighty Lord, please remember me,”
until I remember the newer words that replace
hotheaded folklore and
contested cold wars
with postwar restoration and
renewed adoration of the King
of kings
who opened the temple doors
to saints and sinners,
losers and winners,
Americans
and
Philistines.