I was going to announce to the world
that I had finally grown weary of doing good.
I went for a run and was exhausted.
I took a walk and about passed out.
I slowed down to catch my breath
But the world went on without me.
A wind swirled up in the dust,
And I heard a voice of someone calling out:
“There’s a straight path in the desert
The vallies are raised up
The mountains are completely flat
And the land is smooth as can be!”
But I looked and saw
That the grass had withered
That the flowers had fallen.
There was nothing new under the sun.
Where is our God?
He is out in the fields
He gathers the lambs in his arms
They stay close to his heart
He shepherds the mothers with gentleness
The Lord is our shepherd?
Then who did He consult?
How does he have all this knowledge?
Who taught him how to understand?
Who showed him what is right?
So many questions.
So we worship our rectangles,
And fashion them with fancy metals.
We make houses of mirrors,
And serve only the ones we see.
We do this and know nothing.
We refuse to hear the story
told since the founding of the earth,
since the very beginning.
That in the shepherd’s fields,
With a canopy of stars stretched overhead
The people are like grasshoppers:
Princes, presidents, prime ministers.
They are sown, they take root, and they wither away.
Then the wind carries them off like chaff.
And yet we complain,
Because our ways seem hidden, disregarded.
And we have no ears to hear,
Our eyes see what they want to see.
We are impatient, and grow tired.
If we would only listen, we’d learn to wait,
Yes, sometimes in the dark,
We would discover a hope
In the creator of this earth; there is no other.
For this is how our strength is restored
This is how the weak are made strong.
We decide to hope and then
We go on a walk, we go for a run, and we fly away.
Stepping Back 