Devastation & Reform

This is a poem  I wrote December 2, 2012 & finished this past Friday morning, not knowing the tragedy that would take place later that day.  It is a personal poem of wounding caused by words but I think it can be applied to literal death as well.  It is my way of grieving.  Grief over the fall, over sin, over our own hearts that need love. Desperately. The title is taken from Relient K's song with the same name. 

What is it about us that we can hurt with words?

This gift of communication wasn't it given to build?

Words are meant for intimacy & love not for destruction & rejection.

Of all the things the fall has broken one of em is our communication.

We slash & smash & cut deep wounds with the words that are supposed to be our healing.

 We are bruised & battered & we bruise & batter.

 Words do matter & the words we choose can be sticks & stones to our soul.

What we need is love & affirmation & the skill to be honest without giving out shanks, being real without being defensive.

How can we share that the other has hurt us without hurting in return?

 Is this what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek?

 Are we allowed to tell em how much it hurts yet not slap them back?

Isn't this what loving confrontation is?

 How did we take something like words that are supposed to bring us wholeness& make it something worse, something that we abuse & find power from & use instead to kill?

 We become addicted to the words of sarcasm, & smart remarks & even the harsh, cold words of insults.

 These are the ways the fall has infected us all.

Now we can't be vulnerable or even tell someone we need them become we have believed the lie that everyone is out to get us.

The first chance we get we will tell 'em how it is, we will tell 'em what we think of 'em.

Isn't it sad that those we hurt the most are those who have hurt us the most?

Why can't we just say it, why do we have to hide behind the words that hurt?

Isn't it exhausting playing in the masquerade & everyday you have a new way to hide?

We hide & seek behind the words so we don't have to tell 'em that they affect us & they make us feel a certain way about ourselves.

It's a sad sad world when you don't feel safe at home & those who are you close kin are those who betray you most.

Betrayed with a kiss, as the song goes "kiss you on the cheek, stab you in the back."

Jesus knew what it was to be betrayed by those who knew him best, even those whom his own hand created in their mother's womb.

For it was Jesus who spoke 139 all over Judas' life & yet it was Judas who sought to sell him.

Judas the betrayer, with words & actions & this too is the aftermath of the great fall.

Jesus knows how it is to be abused, rejected, even by his own, it's no wonder he felt so alone.

This gift of communication is supposed to bring us closer together but we have instead used it to draw us further apart.

You go your way & I'll go mine, what else can you do with someone who spits out fire from her mouth?

Worse than a dragon, more poisonous than a snake is a mouth filled with hate.

Yet how easily we can change from the victim to the knave.

We can switch roles & become the one who delivers blow.

A small weapon forges a great fire.

Why should we use our shovel as a shank?

Since when is this no man's land?

This is supposed to be Eden, the garden & the fruit & the trees.

It is supposed to be pleasant here.

Instead the fruit is rotting & blackness covers the vines. When our mouth becomes fire the land of plenty turns to ash.

All the nutrients are sucked dry from our bones.

Because this is what death does it kills us.

Words of death release into our hearts & turn it to stone & we become so tough & callous.

We've forgotten what it is to feel deep.

Because killing off one emotion kills them all.

Our emotions are so intricately connected that when one part of our heart dies, the other dies right along with it.

We need a new heart a heart of flesh.

We need new words spoken to us.

Words that won't hurt but that will bring relief like some good medicine to cure our infection.

Because poison can't be tolerated, even in small doses before it ruins your soul & kills the song of your heart.

But Jesus came, the ultimate EMT.

He's the one with the cross therapy resuscitating what's long been buried.

If you are like me, one who's had a funeral for your heart, had grief, made your peace & have accepted the death, won't you come to see that Jesus can bring back to life what the enemy has stolen, killed & destroyed?

Jesus can breathe in you & give you His commands.

Commands that are more like love letters.

Because God is not the God of the dead, He's alive & He wants all things to come to life.