(white) Skin

Forgive

this (white) skin

this fickle frame.

Exorcise

this heart of leisure;

safe,

complacent,

confused,

willing but bankrupt of stimulus,

engaged but uninspired;

more apt to see the brush strokes of creation

in the stars’ advance across the washboard sky

than in my neighbor’s skin;

to feel the passing of the Lord

through the rippling field of wheat

but dismiss the thumbprint of the Creator

reflected back through fractured mirrors.

So I stare

down the barrel of an incomplete theology

with an inconsistent personality

dressed in the vestments of piety

concealing the filthy rags of impropriety.

Impassioned doctrine lacking application

is abortion of a stillborn faith.

A spirit self-identified as committed to life

bearing the fruit of ignorance,

impotence;

indifference;

of a calloused soul.

How many suffer

for fear of confrontation

as I seek ease

at the cost of a man’s emancipation?

In what hour will it be revealed

that the blood shed was shed for all?

All us weary sinners?

All us wounded saints?

When will my insatiable quest for justice

lead to the Spirit beating down

my own front doors?

When will delusions of holiness

be littered with the shards of my deception?

I am bound

to the sins of my own  privileged condition.

When my consistent

ethic of life ends

at the point of my own nose;

When the depth of my understanding

is bound

to a swifly vanishing tide pool of experience.

Vision worn thin

by vigorous omission.

Eyes gone dim

paralyzed by conviction

while apathy and ease

make short work of

atrophied ambition.

Stumbling

Struggling

Shambling steps

toward a future glory

through the streets of grime and

acrid aromas of our

sin-stained, grey-hued

day-to-day existence.

Come, Salvation,

come

meet us here

for tomorrow

for today.

Tune my heart to grieve;

my soul to hope;

my feet to march;

my lips to pray;

and tears to trace the lines

on this (white) skin.