Together
"Therefore confess your sings to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
James 5:16
I wonder if we took seriously what James said that things might be different?
If our dialogues contained more confessions and questions,
More 'I don't know's and 'That's a good question's, that we might understand-
The holes in the whole of human logic, rather than that of the 'them's and 'those'
We might see humans, instead of 'Dems', 'Pubs', and 'Libs'
And that all of these have gone astray, whether to the Left or the Right
And we might understand what it means to be
One nation under God
One nation in utter need of God (1)
I have confidence, then, that if this was the way
We might be more ready to pray
For one another, for each other, together
To forgive one another, each other, together (2)
And build the kingdom of God with one another, with each other, together
Perhaps our leaders would not be so quick
To twist Christ's words into knots
And take his name in vein
To garnish the sins for which he died
And we would cease to follow-suit ourselves
Cease to enable the wolves in sheep's clothing to remain as such (3)
And so falsify our faith to our children (4)
Cease to seek justice where it is absent (5, 6)
Cease to turn a blind eye to the wrongs of our society (7)
Cease to drag Jesus through the mud of our hatred
Cease to throw him as salt upon the wounds we deal (8)
And instead let him season us as salt of the earth (9)
Maybe then, we would want different things
Righteousness over the perception of being 'right'
The salvation of our enemies rather than their condemnation (10)
To play a role in their redemption rather than their undoing (11)
To tell the truth when we say we love God,
'For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen' (12)
That the work of God would be seen in us,
As lights in the darkness, (13)
By their warmth, as Jesus said, "if you love one another," (14)
And not by their political party colors
Maybe then, we would be as he so prayed, "that they may all be one" (15)
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