The Disenfranchised

we finished all the required assignments (usually early)

then we got bore and painted outside the lines

when we saw a more efficient way

we would often tack on an alternate heading

this did not endear us to those who stayed on track

they had us read “The Road Less Traveled”

but when we took it

we wondered why others didn’t follow

we cheered as they unfurled their banners of grace & truth

only to find them cowering away

when transparency & honesty exposed our

universal brokenness & need for healing

we graduated from their schools, studied their programs

recited the party lines

simply to find ourselves bursting with discontent

we cut our teeth on their favorite tunes

sadly facing their scorn

when we danced to someone else’s song

they taught us a holy text, giving convincing evidence

that it was true (from genesis to maps)

we believed them, with them and like them

but when the Divine Life beyond the ink & paper

broke out in us and around us

they were no longer with us

“He’s not one of us anymore.” “She’s one of those…”

we had jumped through the hoops, apparently one too many

“What’s he doing over there?”

“What sort of experience has she had?”

“What caused him to go in that direction?”

“Have you heard who she’s spending time with?”

most of us are not exactly sure when it happened

though some might highlight a day or season

one morning we all woke up with the same revelation

the settlers had circled the wagons

the town folk had barricaded the gates

we were on the outside looking in,

the feared, invading barbarians

i think our catholic friends have got it partially right

there really is a purgatory, it just comes before you die

- somewhere in the middle of the story –

and, oh how we need motherly saints lighting candles

praying us through these darkest (if not oddest) of times

shrouded by the limbo of speaking their language

but knowing the cadence of others

loving their customs, honoring their festivals & rituals

while celebrating the tapestries woven by different tribes

and drafting fresh scores of our own design

we are the disenfranchised,

a remnant of ragamuffin pilgrims rising from

an “either or” world, we cannot (dare not) turn back

we have caught a glimpse of another realm

set our sights on a Kingdom not built by men

and we navigate a passage unmistakably guided

by the shadow of a cross

and the Glory of a King

“Everything that can be shaken will be shaken,

so that only what is unshakeable will remain.”

“Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

mark d. cooke, 3-21-02