Wednesday after second Lent: Yes

After reading John 5:1-18,
       (but before saying good bye to a friend.)
In John is the healing pool of Beth-za'tha.

YES

“Do you want to be healed?”

I think the answer is forever: “Yes”

And when it is asked I wonder if I am awake.

Yet I fear I will not be so.

I will too much be in my wound.

Too much lost to malcontent.

And so I ever pray: “Keep me awake,

For Your and my sake.”

I think there is a moment when,

as we sit with those who mourn

or those who have lost their way

to good and hopeful things,

a call comes to us one and all,

“For God’s sake, awake!”

 

I am not sure it is by a pool,

a Beth-za'tha in our heart.

But surely it is by a dream

planted deep before our birth,

a dream  of hope and

longing for our best homing,

our awakening anew to things of eternal worth

But just now pressing homeward.

Where is that home?

 I have trip upon it in a smile,

in the gentle hand that took mine

for but awhile,

in the lingering of a friend.

A little child,

both I and he

who longed for a love,

A love that flourishes above.

“Awake, be stirred, be cured.”

And then there it is in Holy Word;

“Arise, take up, and walk.”

The pool has stirred

me awake

from within yet without.

There is a healing

in hand, and smile and child

willing to stay for awhile.

And all I can say is,

“Yes.”