Shortly after Easter I attended a retreat that focused on creativity and spirituality. In one of the workshops we were invited to write our own psalm. I knew that I would write about the mass shooting that occurred in Uvalde May 24, 2022, and the upcoming first anniversary of that tragedy. I was surprised by how easily and quickly the words came but not so surprised by the words that came.
The shooting has called me more deeply into my priesthood and at the same time called into question so many things. I suspect it’s that tension that gave birth to the words I wrote. Some might hear my words as unfaithfulness. Perhaps they are. Others might hear them as growth. I hope they are. But I’m not really sure what they are other than my struggle with God, life in this world, and myself. Maybe you know that struggle too.
Have mercy on me, O God.
Wash me through and through.
Purge me from my sin.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
And what about you, O God?
What about your heart?
What about your sin?
You listen to my words but can you speak them?
Dare you speak them
to Buffalo,
Uvalde,
Highland Park,
Nashville,
Louisville?
To me?
How long, O Lord, how long?
Are you incapable or just unwilling?
Though you’ve never asked, I prefer a weak God who cannot
to a strong God who can but chooses not to.
Where is the Omni in your Potent these days, O God?
They tell me that yours, O God, is the first heart to break.
I’ve said that to others, but tell me O God, whose will be the last? And when?
How long, O Lord, how long?
Have you broken me or broken open something in me?
Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference.
I’ve cried until I have no more tears.
My tears haven’t dried; they run dry.
My eyes have the dry heaves.
What about your tears, O God?
What about your eyes?
Do you feel the sting of my dry eyes?
I want to know, O God, I want to know all these things.
And yet…
And yet…
And yet…
You are God and I am not.
I am Mike.
And we are standing on holy ground.
I will, therefore, put on my sandals and make a first step,
trusting O God, my God,
trusting that you will follow.
____________________
Image Credit: By U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Flickr, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Interrupting the Silence 
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