Come Jesus
I wonder what to do now that I’ve seen the images: a mother lifted
from her feet crying to her children, teenage boys with arms zip tied
behind them, their elbows erect as the bones of a cooked chicken,
the men in white, their heads shaved, kneeling in tidy rows,
all in submission before a government that has become a god. When
I show my mom the images, she says, “Jesus can’t get here fast enough.”
But I usually doubt the return of Jesus. I’ve seen satellite images of
heaven: Each light a universe — each universe full of worlds.
Jesus told us his father’s house has many mansions, but now we’ve seen
heaven is boundless like the swift waters of spring melting from the mountains,
gushing in waves to flood ditch banks and roads. So many souls,
so many lives, can we believe he cares only about us? I do not doubt
government can be a jealous god, that there can be no other gods
before it. I do not doubt that once it sees Jesus loves
the displaced, the powerless, the homeless,
that once it realizes he is dark skinned and destitute,
he will be captured, shaved, forced to kneel as he did before Pilate,
next to other men scarred by tattoos marking a father’s passing,
a rape, an autistic brother, a daughter’s birth, a murder.
Faith tries to convince me Jesus will hear, so I kneel on the soft carpet
of my bedroom whispering into nothing, “Please come, please come,
please come.” And if he is listening, he will appear in rapturous glory,
as scripture tells us, to liberate the displaced, the powerless, the homeless,
to free those shackled men dressed in white with heads shaven clean,
and give them flight, white rubber clogs dripping like hail from their stocking feet,
pelting the earth as it burns.
Elaine Turner is a teacher, writer, and dancer based in small town Idaho where she cares for her parents (@elainetlamb).
Photo by Louis Galvez on Unsplash
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