Saturday Morning

Saturday morning - my morning to sleep late - you came pounding on my closed front door.
I grab my robe; hot, heavy & scratchy, to hide my thin cool nightshirt, spilling last night’s water.
Then I opened my door and there you were, Mr. Starched, Button-Down Shirt and Black Tie,
come to do your evangelical duty on my throw rug at 7 a.m. of an already hot morning.
Thus begins the dance.

You want to know if I claim citizenship in the glories of heaven; I’m thinking of pancakes.
You ask if I am confused by the perplexities of the world we live in today.  I remain evasive.
You stand with your perfect, shiny bible in one hand, tracts in the other and a too bright smile,
reminding me of an infotainment I saw last night while flipping through channels in search of A&E.
You are misplaced arrogance.

So I tell you I use to be an orphan - until I found my Father’s hand, open and broken for me.
You want a simple paraphrase of my life, a swept-back, shortened drama of sin and remorse.
But my life doesn't matter to this cosmopolitan world of sinners turned saints by congress.
For that life is soon to be toppled by it’s own sin, and it’s own arrogance - YOUR arrogance.
You step back from me afraid.

Here I stand sleepy, disheveled, hot and sticky – more sure of my faith than you are of yours.
I touch your bible, so shiny, so pristine, and suggest that you open the cover and look inside.
You have followed the words, written in tracts, of someone not of God – and gone forth blind.
I gently open the cover of what you have used as a prop, and show you the truth within.
I see your frightened disbelief fade.

You are a beater of the enemy to whom you once prayed.

What would you have done if I had answered my door with castanets on my fingers, flowers in my hair and invited you to stay for strawberry-rhubarb pie?