Our Need of Healing
Pentecost 9, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
What might we learn if we gathered to share
all we have taught and done?
Jesus would listen and help us discern
what we have lost and won.
Bodies can eat here, but souls are half-starved.
We come and go distressed.
He says, “Let’s go to a peaceful place,”
calming our breath to rest.
Ours not the worry of large hungry crowds:
sheep here admit no need.
Few now respond to the shepherd’s voice,
straying too far to heed.
Can we cross over to that other shore
where we might recognize
sickness of soul has infected the Earth?
Scales need to fall from eyes.
Heedless, prostrate in the marketplace,
stricken by what we buy,
where is the will to reach out to him?
Would we prefer to die?
Who can admit that we need to heal
country and air and seas?
We are consumed by consumer needs,
deaf to the word that frees.
Can his compassion encompass us,
teach us to turn and live?
He gave his life to enliven us
so we in turn might give.
Barbara Messner 14/07/2021
Barb, poet priest 
Bless you for such clarity here. In the US this week we are consumed by violence and threats of violence and the need for this insight is profound … and the safety-to-read created by the poetic form.
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“Bodies can eat here, but souls are half-starved.”
So, so tragically true.
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