Glass shatters, sun light flows, a biting wind awakes my soul. I see, after all, that life is light, not sharp clear panes. I took glass for beauty, yet it was the penetrating wind that awoke me to see through, see the view, to see You.
With words,
We condemn as casually as breath flows out,
Loving sparingly as if a trickle could nourish the flood plains
When we need the deluging river.
My skin, with fragments of glass, feels the wind as I walk, out.
My daughter is already there playing in the breeze;
My wife by the brook, refreshing.
I’m tired by words, energized by words. There are words, though not eloquent, that soothe my soul. And there are words, lucid and doctrinal, that harm me. The phrases may be correct, may profess a desire for truth, yet they wound. They could never be found in Your mouth.
You said, “Don’t judge.”
We add: “unless…”.
We scold the “lost” as if we had never been.
Yet I see, with the wind in my face, just how “lost” we “found” can be.
Lost in a way almost impossible to see.
We have lost humility, the ability to see.
The glass is stained.
There is a day that resounds in my soul, an unsought email, an opinion turned valuation.
A confident, evangelical man charged me to preach both testaments, the whole Bible.
To preach the gospel, he said.
Not. Just. Jesus.
I had never felt such a jolt, the crash nearly audible.
Is He not the old and the new?
Is He not the fullness of the gospel?
The. Good. News?
The glass that cuts the wind and chills the light
Jabs at my feet as I walk to the stream.
To see myself clearly reflected.
I, too, judge and burden, lose sight of the way, speak heartless words,
Get lost.
It’s just that today my window broke, the Light flooding in,
And the Wind woke me.
By Jonathan McCallum
@jonamccallum
