How You Must Grieve

How you must grieve
El Roi
How you must grieve

To see the helpless abandoned
To see the weak victimized
To see the righteous impotent

Oh my great and powerful Father
I feel so very small
When I look at the wickedness
Surrounding me

I am sickened
By the 8000 dead
From a virus
Since yesterday.

I am outraged
By the doctors who kill
In the guise of mercy.

I am saddened
By the desolate man
Standing ten feet from my
Shiny car door
Holding his sign,
Palms upraised.

May your name be praised
All-Seeing Creator-God
May your glory fill the earth
So that it may crowd out the shadows
And dispel the dark.

There are so many wounds
So many tombs
Too many rooms filled with
Sickness and want.

When I think of the heavens,
The works of your hands,
I feel so small.

And when I think of
All this destruction,
The work of your Enemy,
I feel smaller.

How you must grieve
Great and gracious God
How you must grieve

To see the violence we commit
In the name of self-preservation
To see the blindness we embrace
In the name of practicality
To see the hands shoved deeply
Into pockets, the brisk walking past,
The intentional ignorance, the forced
Non-acknowledgement
Of the sleeper on the street corner
Wrapped in paper
Like fish.

I tried to comprehend it
To wrap my mind around
Every cause, every injustice,
But I cannot.
At night I lie in my bed and weep
Overwhelmed by the misery
I cannot stop with my tiny hands.

Oh my God
I am so small
I feel so weak
There is too much for me to handle.

How you must grieve
El Roi
How you must grieve

For you must see it all,
And because of your faithfulness,
Your promise to Your people,
You do not have the luxury
Of looking away.