Battered, My Heart

Eight years later

I have known friends with cancer,
Most dreaded of diseases,
Who feared the oncologist
And what would happen next;

Because they knew the
Treatment would be brutal,
With lost hair, and ruined
Digestion, and a world of pain.

The oncologists cause suffering
Akin to that of torture, yet
We call them healers, not
Torturers, and give them thanks.

For we know that cancer is a part
Of the body gone wrong, that
Needs to be killed out to save
The rest, despite collateral harm.

And we know that the oncologist
Who causes such suffering seeks
The patient’s good, and that a cure
Makes much pain worthwhile.

I have had within me a cancer
Of the heart, that would kill me,
And the Great Physician, the soul’s
Oncologist, had the only cure.

And so he battered my cancerous heart;
Knocked, breathed, shined and sought
To mend; overthrew me to make
Me stand, new and healed.

Let the Great Oncologist do his work,
Though at times we think him
A torturer, yet he wishes to heal,
And will, if we accept his physick.

In the Evil Day

In our youth we thought we knew
What the future held in store;
Love and marriage, house and child,
Decent job, and so much more;

And we’d go to church and tithe,
Live uprightly as you please,
And on dying we’d be carried
To the skies on beds of ease.

Though the One we said we followed
Warned we must take up the cross,
We supposed it merely rhetoric,
Never dreamed we’d suffer loss;

For our parents and their parents,
And all followers that we knew,
Had it pretty good, and we assumed
The same was but our due.

But our adult years, it turned out,
Were the evening of this world,
With the best already taken,
And the sails of progress furled.

Evening wolves were much abroad,
Spoiling love, and joy, and peace,
Spreading fear and narcissism,
And all kinds of soul-disease.

And our spouses bailed and left us,
Though we’d tried to do them right,
Looking elsewhere for fulfillment,
Leaving us alone at night.

And those of us with children
(Which some never got to have)
Saw their hearts all crushed and broken
Past the parents’ power to salve;

For they faced a world where adults
Oft refused to act as such;
Valued youth so very highly,
But young people not so much;

A world of debt, and missing jobs,
Of spreading terror and pollution,
Of nature-wrecking climate change,
And family-smashing revolution;

A world that said “Seek pleasure,
“And when you feel life’s strain,
“Try to cope by taking chemicals,
“And messing up your brain.”

We worried for our children,
In this topsy-turvy time,
Where dark was light, and virtue
Often treated as a crime.

And then we finally realized
That the easy life we’d sought
Had been only an illusion,
A puff of steam, a thought.

We’re hoping yet to reach the skies,
Much as we hoped before,
But now we know to get there
That we first must fight a war;

A war that’s fought with kindness,
Where we’re not allowed to hate,
And if we fall down seven times,
We get up and go for eight;

Where our enemies aren’t people,
But dark forces we can’t see;
The people we must seek to help,
For they are no worse than we.

The ancients said to arm ourselves
With truth that helps and frees,
To shield the heart with rightness,
And to walk with news of peace;

To ward off all attacks with faith,
To wear a helmet of salvation,
Take up the living Spirit’s sword,
Aid every tribe and nation;

So that we who face the evil day
Can stand and not retreat,
And when we’ve all our duty done
End up still on our feet.