Unleashed
It feels like something has been unleashed
in our world, something dark and primal
that feeds on fear,
pulling us apart like gravity
dragging down a heavenly body.
Powers and principalities, St. Paul called it.
What has been unleashed has long
seethed within us, since we first sat
around fires and looked at another
and saw an other to shove down.
Growing like an infection in our soul,
fed by a culture fixated on greed,
a celebrity society obsessed with
those who sparkle most and
scream the loudest with
nothing to say of substance.
Sirens in our midst who
lure us toward illusion while
we crash on the rocks and perish.
The ropes that pull us down
are anchored in that place
in our own small self
that nurtures a willful arrogance
and a cultivated ignorance–
perhaps the two demons of our days
that most need exorcising.
Entertainers rise to the top because
bread and circuses have always
been tools to distract and numb
while people cheer themselves
deeper and deeper into suffering.
Yet, while these soul shackles
are anchored in that shallowness,
that is not all there is to
us as a people made in
God’s image–each and all of us together.
We must look back to those
selfless ones who spoke the truth
about how emptiness and humility are
the antidote to the poison that plagues us.
We must look here, in this moment,
to name that which must be named
so that the spell may be broken and
The fog lifted to see more clearly..
And we must look just enough ahead
so that we can see the place where
our next step must be planted.
Stuart
9/17/2020
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