We run harder to win.
We work harder to break even.
We piece our lives together
one cubit at a time
and we are left weary by our anxiety.
And then, in the midst of our fatigue,
come your sovereign commandments.
We are made mindful
that you are the glue
that connects our present and our future.
You are the link
that makes continuity between our choices and our destinies,
b
etween our much striving and our inescapable outcomes.
And we,
shocked by your relentless, uncompromising, coherence,
break from our idols
and slouch toward the neighborhood where you will us to be.
We are felled into a company of brothers and sisters
who care for us and
who call us to care,
neighbors all.
We find open air
and free space
and save companions
whereby we may quit running
and working
and exhausting.
We
fall back into our simplicity,
faithful to you and to neighbors,
jut as you command us
Walter Brueggemann, Cincinnati, 2011
[reproduced from Embracing the Prophets in Contemporary Culture]
