Love Poured Out

   As much as I love studying the book of John, as I have done so many times now in BSF, I always dread getting to chapter 12, the beginning of the beautiful, but grim, death march to the cross. This week's lesson is on chapter 13, and I needed a way to express what I was feeling. Of course, for me, that is a poem.

 

 Love Poured Out

 

You were about to leave the world

in a horrible, humiliating way,

while those who loved you best

were arguing who was greatest.

 

I would not have washed their feet,

I would have held them face down

in the wash basin. I would have 

sought comfort, not given it. 

 

I don't understand you at all,

but I wish I was like you. 

Gentle, and focused on the glory

instead of the agony. 

Focused on the eleven

who loved you, not the one

who betrayed you,

though you loved him, too.

I wish, like Mary, I had a tangible way

to comfort you then, in your time of need.

But all I have are these poured out words,

the late and faint fragrance of my love.