It’s the Hype I Hate

It’s the Hype I Hate

I don’t mind your flaws,
never have.
It’s the hype I hate.
It’s the bean-counting, the
enrollment of thousands like
awards worn on your chest.
It's the thousands more left behind
by the bus you drove to get there.
Did you ever stop? Did you find the
pulse of the ones lying in the road?

I don’t mind your opinions,
I have my own.
It’s the hate that escapes me.
It’s the veins in your head popping like
gunfire
ready to use your words to paint the living
as already dead.
It's the hundreds who hear you and
nod
like they have heard from god.

I once pastored a church that sits on
five acres of land. Yet it sits vacant,
taking up space,
ninety percent of the week. I don’t mind
the buildings and asphalt, I don’t even know
whose fault it is. It’s the certainty I hate
that replaces mystery with a litany of by-laws
of invisible scaffolding. Some stay away,
some flock like geese,
but all should be welcome, all should find nothing
so sweet as a place to sleep when all their
bridges have been burned.

The principalities and powers will fall when their
thrones are deconstructed to build
shelters for the known and the unknown.