Although we learn to run
from brokenness, – our own and that
of others – we are made to notice it.
Slowly we learn to open our hearts
in hospitality and our world to justice.
We can remain for a time on a threshold.
Help us see the shalom and the suffering,
the outcasts and the strangers,
and the revelations that they bring.
Help us see the blessings of the liminal
so we will find the courage to cross.
When we cross a border,
a road, a threshold, or a room,
what was outside come can alive
among us and within us.
Crossing spaces makes them different
and can turn borders to welcome mats.
Love not our own connects us,
opens us to the borders that we did not set,
the bridges we did not make, and the doors
we neither opened nor closed.
Love learns and grows, makes space and heals,
even breaks rules, opening our eyes and hearts.
Help us bring courage to times of transition.
The priest and the Levite did not cross.
Seeking God in the temple or on the mountain
seemed to make a difference to them.
Though in our own practiced deafness
we should not condemn them,
perhaps even extend our sympathies.
Crossing is not so much a virtue
as a calling we can hope to hear.
The oil and wine from the Samaritan
for the wounded traveler did not shatter further
and found the particular suffering
and knew the cost of hospitality.
That life, all life, is a gift given in love.
The journey is not only the one
going down from Jerusalem to Jericho
on our own business, but the orthogonal
one across the road where we make a space
to receive a gift and hear a calling.
Reflections and Connexions
The artwork accompanying this poem was done by classmate, teammate, and childhood friend who lived across the field, abstract expressionist, Richard Nash. Its title is Search. This is not a word used in the poem though I think it can be a theme that runs throughout, as in the one who searches will find and as in the one who gives attention can then act. It is not a narrow door but one with a golden path, inviting entry, crossing over after we search. I want to thank Richard for the use of his painting that fits the poem so well.
Two years ago I gave a copy of this poem to kind and thoughtful Israeli tour guide Urie Fisch. He liked it and said he will read it when his tours stop at the Museum of the Good Samaritan along the current road from Jerusalem to Jericho. (Sadly now Urie’s tour bus has been converted to a transport for Israeli Defense Forces, and he drives some of them where they need to go.) If you are not familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan, you can find it in chapter 10 of Luke’s gospel. It is told in response to a question about the great commandment, “Who is my neighbor?” At Urie’s suggestion I will comment on two words in the poem which could need defining. ‘Orthogonal’ in the last verse is used not in its strict mathematical definition but neither forward nor back but in another direction. I first came across the word ‘liminal’ in the work of John O’Donohue. It means at a threshold, and we cross many in our lives. It mystified me for some time what he meant when he said that we should try to cross thresholds worthily (as if we could be worthy of anything). Now I believe he simply meant to offer our attention. I hope you will consider your own journey and your own thresholds.
Leave a Reply