Poem April 13, 1987 Issue

Mandate for Thursday

Sally Seagull Johnstone

This is not a night to be betraying the Christ
To wander off into wide ways of destruction
in search of something more worldly,
more conservative, more silvered
with human approval
than deep prayers in a dim garden.

This is not a night to be denying our discipleship
To warm our little ambitions
by the relative fires of local misconceptions
about what is absolutely essential to life.

This is not a night for big talk and no silence
To win arguments by theory or theology
that only discusses reality
skirting the heart of the matter
with ritual and rhetoric
instead of letting our feet be washed.

Come to Gethsemane now.
Watch with the Christ but one hour.
Weep if you must and wrestle if you dare
but do not forsake the midnight
that must resurrect us from doubt.

Sally Seagull Johnstone

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