Pry Me off Dead Center

Deliver me from assuming that mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grow more human,
    not through the lessening of my struggles,
    but through an expansion of them
    that will undamn me
    and unbury my gifts.

Deepen my hurt
    until I learn to share it
    and myself
    openly,
    and my needs honestly.

Sharpen my fears
    until I name them
    and release the power I have locked in them
    and they in me.

Accentuate my confusion
    until I shed those grandiose expectations
    that divert me from the small, glad gifts
    of the now and the here and the me.

Expose my shame where it shivers,
    crouched behind the curtains of propriety,
    until I can laugh at last
    through my common frailties and failures,
    laugh my way toward becoming whole.

Deliver me
    from just going through the motions
    and wasting everything I have
    which is today,
        a chance,
            a choice,
                my creativity,
                    your call.

Let how much it all matters
pry me off dead center
so if I am moved inside
    to tears
        or signs
            or screams
                or smiles
                    or dreams,

they will be real
and I will be in touch with who I am
and who you are
and who my sisters and brothers are.

-Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle

Comments

[Brian Hager]

I wrote a poem that seems to express some similar sentiments of how God pried me off of "dead" center.

TELL THE CHURCH

I never dreamed to see the day
when to the Church I’d want to say,
“No longer do you own my heart.
The Lord, my God, is where I’ll start
to learn the truth of how I stand
upon this earth, or in this land.”

For far too long I checked my youth
believing Church knew all the TRUTH
of God – real. Yet, I hid in fear
from every word which caught my ear
about His wrath and reckoning
for my trespass. Then beckoning

my angel guard to guide my heart
unto a room, where I apart
from the flock, would tell my sin
for healing salve, but once therein
a rote reply cast chill and doubt
upon my thoughts so less devout.

This only made me try the harder
to ignite a sense of ardor
in the recess of my soul;
an empty, dark and vacuous hole.
No act or substance filled the need
for God’s own part - the sewer’s seed.

Finally, when I ceased to try
- a future – I had sought to buy…
explosive shards of brilliant light
pierced the blackness of my plight
to give me what I needed most…
the name which Paul had claimed as boast.

Puzzled, still, why He delayed
in helping me, I felt betrayed.
No answer had I heard to prayer
which made me think he didn’t care.
When I questioned my next choice
of where to go and what to voice,

the central message I could hear
told me there was naught to fear:
“Every sinner needs to know
salvation flows from Yes or No
to the offer of God’s gift
given free before a shrift.”

As I wait upon the brink
should I act before I think?
Life is something lived, not planned.
(But, could grow so out of hand)
I live within the present Now
to keep my hand upon the plow!

January 1, 2009