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| Jonah Icon, Holy Transfiguration Melkite Church, McLean, VA |
Spilling from branch to
branch, aimlessly
Tilting toward the glossy rain-soaked
asphalt.
Letting go, slipping from
their perch
Above the capitol city, wet autumn
night,
Most have yet to turn from
green to yellow,
Or orange, or the radiant
reds of maples in the north.
Still they slide to the
street, or land sadly
And forever on unaware windshields
Of commuting cars, drivers eager
to get home.
Jonah tossed from the rail of
his escape,
Swallowed whole by a great
fish and
Wallowing in his
disappointment that
Things turned out the way
they did.
Peter too, cowering by the
station fire,
Retreating to the safer
regions of privilege
And illusions of safekeeping
and immortality.
Is this inevitable, this
falling, this yielding
To fears unexamined and the
driving rains of October?
Years ago I sat with inmates
in a small
County jail, chapel walls
painted with icons.
Reading stories of prodigals
lost, prodigals found,
Sharing a loaf of bread,
broken into pieces because
Jesus was too, broken into
pieces, buried by loss.
A sad boy across the circle
wept for a child
Far away, who didn’t call and
didn’t come;
And another looked up, and recognized
the sound,
The pain, and then (I swear
to God) he stood and
Walked over to the weeping
one, and sat by him,
Held his hand, and he said to
him:
“My brother, you are not
alone,” just like that.
So I want to say to Jonah and
Peter, and to my own
Fabulously failing self: The
eyes of God are upon you,
The lovingkindness of God
steps toward you now,
And the falling leaves of
October are gathered up,
In the invisible cycle of
Gethsemane and Calvary,
Friday’s piercing grief, and
Sunday’s golden light.
The jailed brother sits,
holds out his tattooed hand:
“My brother, you are not
alone.”
Just like that.
DGJ
11 October 2018
Washington, DC
