Due to the events of the past week, I’ve been hesitant to post this. In one day, what had been an observation of a natural occurrence during a rainy April day took on a far different meaning. The spring storms that had been sweet and refreshing became gloomy and cold. This is insensitive, I thought.
But something kept drawing me back. Nagging at me. This week I have heard many people make comments about how things are getting worse all the time and how the recent shootings and bombings are proof that the world is “headed to hell in a hand-basket.” These people shake their heads, expressing fear, anger, and resignation. I have heard and seen just as many comments pointing out how worse things than these happen everyday all over the world and are ignored. These people, indignant, point out that yes, the world is an awful place, but it has always been so and is so everyday – regardless of what the breaking news story on US news networks may be.
The truth is, these people are right. We are, as a planet, headed to hell in a hand-basket. Death and destruction can be found on every continent. But death has been here with us all along, and it will be here until the very end. When that end comes, however, death will be conquered, after the dismantling of every government on earth, and everyone who shares in the hope of Christ will live again without fear of an end.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ – 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 24-27a
Death will be here as long as we are on this awful earth that is full of it. But we needn’t fear it – death has no victory. Rather, it is swallowed up. Defeated. Under His feet.
All that to say that I wrote this poem about April rain, but it turned out to be about some other things, too.
Bodies litter the sidewalk where
the massacre took place. Worms
came, blind, from the ground to live.
Tread lightly
around the carcasses: you too will die
on the concrete instead of the earth.
Puddles drain into dirt, leaving death
and fed grass.