Pastor,

You may say it well but it’s not enough

This pain won’t let me hear

It’s too much and it’s too little, no matter how sincerely you try

You’ve un-surfaced these scars yet again and their depth drowns out all else

You missed the mark and your words fall short of being a balm that heals

You’re all wrong, just by default, your skin, your voice, your body

You are the problem that triggers these wounds so deep, and there’s nothing you can do

That Sunday I entered the sanctuary, it entered me, and this sacred mess spun around

Communication in words and symbols will always fail

Amplified thoughts both dilute and stab all we’ve carried here

Is there even a way to speak a truth that won’t offend and stir?

I don’t know

So in the mean time I’ll assume the worst and project my past, and make you the caricature I’ve been told you are

I’ll conclude you’re wrong and declare your shame without inquiring of your own pain

It’s not valid anyway

Whether you already know what I’m trying to say or you actually said what I claim you didn’t, isn’t something I care about

Because what I need is beyond all that, an impossible ask that I still expect

I need you to hold all my burdens because if you don’t, who will?

I need you to say what I want you to, and afterwards I need you to be ok with me saying you didn’t or you did it wrong

Cause I’m lost and tumbling and tossing in this world of suffering

The currents so strong you’re sure to drown no matter how well trained your strokes

So what’s the point? Why do you try? What were you hoping to do?

———

Child,

I’m sorry, and I love you, and your scars are beautiful here.

I can’t make it better and I’ll surely mess it up, but I hope there is something more

I hope what’s stirred is exposed for love and the divine will find you there

I pray to God that I don’t get in the way and that you’ll encounter the holy still

That all I say and all I am may only serve as a rope of life

Climb, push, throw, and forget as long as you make it to the shores

——-

All,

God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference