Our Charge

This image by Ferdi Rizkiyanto struck me, and then a poem heard at our church this morning brought it home. Our charge, as parents, as citiczens, as consumers, as beings, is to care for one another.

Inventing Sin by George Ella Lyon (from Life Prayers, ed. by E. Roberts and E. Amidon)

God signs to us
we cannot read
She shouts
and we take cover
She shrugs
and trains leave
the tracks

Our schedules! we moan
Our loved ones

God is fed up
All the oceans she gave us
All the fields
All the acres of steep seedful forests
And we did what
Invented the Great Chain
of Being and
the chain saw
Invented sin

God sees us now
gorging ourselves &
starving our neighbors
starving ourselves
and storing our grain
& She says
I've had it
you cast your trash
upon the waters-
it's rolling in

You stuck your fine fine finger
into the mystery of life
to find death

& you did
you learned how to end
the world
in nothing flat

Now you come crying
to your Mommy
Send us a miracle
Prove that you exist

Look at your hand, I say
Listen to your sacred heart
Do you have to haul the tide in
sweeten the berries on the vine

I set you down
a miracle upon miracles
You want more
It's your turn
You show me