Words.
Matter.
In us.
God’s love
made skin and bones
muscle and marrow
hands and hearts
God’s words.
Matter.
In us.
No more speeches or spin doctors,
debates or diatribes—no--
God’s nouns and adjectives and verbs
made alive
welcoming
respecting
forgiving
loving
incarnating belonging
in us.
Words made matter,
planted in salvaged soil
reclaimed
restored
valued
savored and saving
hope
in us.
So be it.
Author’s note: So many words. Too many. This is what came to mind for me as I listened to all the talk at and about the National Prayer Breakfast. As a Christian clergy person, I longed at the end of a week of chaotic and contentious words in Washington for prayerful moments of reflection, even for expressions of concern for all that divides us as a nation. John’s Gospel speaks of Jesus as God’s Word made flesh. This week, I longed for fewer spoken words and more words made flesh in embodied actions of communal care that cross boundaries and borders that separate us from each other. I realize that such longings are idealistic. They dwell in sacred geographies of hope. For now, these longings are, for me, the prayer that was not spoken at this week’s prayer breakfast.
Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.