All Things New

Teach us the patience to heal

Jesus, 

We love disposable things.

Plastic containers and bags 

filling oceans and landfills.

We tend to replace broken things,

not repair them.

Take a sip and discard;

microwave, eat, and discard.

Something broken?

No problem!

Go to Amazon, click, click, click,

overnight delivery and boom!

Broken thing replaced, not repaired.

The little luxuries that wealth affords

for expediency’s sake and convenience’s glory.

No wonder we don’t know how to heal!

We have no resilience in the struggle,

no patience for the waiting, 

no empathy for those 

who are too far away from wealth 

to hear her shouting

“No problem!” 

and close enough to poverty

to hear her whisper

“You are stuck!” 

But you,

being able to change the world 

faster than a microwave turns kernels into popcorn,

chose the slow path of birth and growth.

Nine months in mom’s womb,

childhood playing and learning Torah,

youth watching dad and learning a craft,

thirty whole years before you announced

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

Because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me 

to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind, 

to set free the oppressed

to proclaim the year 

of the Lord’s favor.

You weren’t interested in convenience and expediency;

you wanted re-creation and redemption

because the world is too precious to be disposable

and creation too beautiful to be abandoned.

You died on the cross 

a slow, painful death 

so every part of us

would be healed and redeemed. 

We were fragmented, 

shattered in millions of pieces

by sin’s hammering force.

But your blood glued us together

restoring our souls to reflect you

and re-creating your image. 

Piece by piece you have taught us

that you don’t give up on things;

you don’t give up on us.

We are not disposable! 

You have bestowed on us 

the dignity of redemption,

the privilege of growing slow,

the sacredness of healing well

so that we may show off our scars.

Healer, 

Teach us to love lacquer and glue.

Grant us the patience to be

agents of repair and redemption

and to choose the slow process of growth.

Teach us to mend what is broken.

Fill our cracks with your binding love

and embellish them with your Light. 

Kintsugi our souls that we may Kintsugi the world.

Οur souls need deliverance from apathy.

Our streets need healing from gun violence.

Our sidewalks need healing from neglect.

Our city needs deliverance from systems

that draw red lines around people

and push us further apart.

Tear down the walls of hostility!
Disarm the weapons of corruption!
Break the strongholds that hold us

captive to evil systems of injustice!

Kintsugi our souls that we may kintsugi the world.

Amen