“Call Us Again”

           Dear Jesus, we have heard the call to follow you but it’s been awhile and we have forgotten how you sound. We hear the other voices a plenty, voices calling us to seek revenge, to give up, to isolate, nurture the root of bitterness, fudge the truth, naval gaze, turn away from the suffering of others and lean into self-hatred. Those voices are loud and the call is strong to forget what you see for us, what you want for us, have in store for us.

           So, Jesus, if you would, could you call us again? Could you just sing your song a little louder, raise your voice to get our attention, make a bit more noise to draw us out and away from where we have wandered and gotten lost? Call us, Brother Jesus, out of the despair, out of the brokenness, away from the indifference and resentment and powerlessness and grief, all of which threaten our fragile souls, and would you bring us back into your fold of goodness and mercy and sweet relief from our sorrow?

           Call us to compassion for ourselves and for others. Call us to courage to do the difficult things like forgiveness and seeking help. Call us to generosity and kindness and gratitude and truth, even when it’s hard to name it.

           Call us to the streets you walked where so many stumble in addiction and loneliness and injustice. Call us to the hospital bed and the classroom and the prison cell, the border cities, the homeless shelters and the soup kitchen and the halls of justice. Call us to blank pages waiting for poems and stories, to the dance floor and to watercolor paints and the instrument stashed away and the music we used to sing.

           Call us to the healing we are offered in support groups and the therapist’s sofa, the church pew, the doctor’s office and the dentist’s chair.

           Call us to be still and listen, to see the beauty around us, to stop just for a minute and hear what it is you’re trying to say. Call us to the river and the mountain trails and the bird sanctuaries and the places where you speak the loudest.

           Call us back to the table where we left in anger, back to the dreams that once filled us with passion, back to the places and relationships that we have abandoned because of fear or grudges or neglect.

           Call us out of the small lives we where we are so comfortable and where we have stayed too long. Call us from our doubts and disillusionment. Call us from the shadows and into the light.

           Jesus, we claimed we follow you. We gather with others and say it’s you we want to be like. We heard your voice and we said yes. But today, having forgotten what we once knew so well, we stand before you in all our vulnerability, all our humanness asking you to call us again.

You are the light of the world!

Yours,

Lynne