IT
INTRODUCTION
Last night as I reflected on today’s readings for this Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, it hit me to go the way of a poetic reflection instead of a homily. I do this at times when I feel homilied out. So this is called, “It”. It is not too long.
IT
He struggled with it
for 38 years.
He tried everything,
but nothing took it away.
It bothered him.
It drove him crazy.
Every time he fell,
it made him feel worse.
It kept him from
looking other people in the eye.
It humbled him.
It hunched him over a bit.
Oh, there were times
when he felt he was overcoming it.
But then when he fell again,
he would hear a voice from the past –
a message from what the preachers
who used to say about it,
“Pride comes before the fall.”
It made him give up.
“Oh it," he would say,
"It! I guess it's me –
and it's me for the rest of my life.”
But no, wrong, surprise.
Changes, healings, happen
sometimes only after
one hits the bottom of it.
It got him half way up.
It got him to his knees.
It got him to go to church.
It got him to confess to himself, to God,
“Bless me Father for I have sinned….”
It got him to talk to someone about it.
It got him to realize it was desire,
the hungering desire at the bottom
of every human being.
It got him to realize God is the
deepest desire at the bottom
of every human being.
It got him to Christ.
Christ, whom he saw
as a main break,
Christ, Living Water,
Christ, bursting open with water
flowing – streaming –
rivering all over him,
soaking him totally.
It gave him the feeling
of being washed clean –
in a pool of clear water –
in a bath of love.
He felt healed.
It had gone away – at least
for a day – then he felt
it was away for a week –
then a month, then a year.
He was dealing with it a day at a time.
It made him feel stronger.
It gave him understanding of others.
It got him to stop blaming others.
It got him to drop rocks.
It got him to feel loved
and to return that love.
It got him to stand up
and walk straight – tall
all the days of the rest of his life.
Christ was no longer an it.
