fields everywhere

two psalms and mini-essay about escape

Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
    may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
    my highest joy.

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What fury that rages inside us when we slam a door—as if every pent up molecule will be simultaneously cast out and kept out. Somedays, when I am barraged with candidate pamphlets and advertisements and yard signs, I want to slam the door on this world and all it’s garbage and turn to see something new.

How do you know when it’s time to give up hoping, and when it’s time to press in?

Sometimes, I am so ready to escape the world—to throw in the towel because of the elderly babies in the government ruining it for the rest of us, because of the unformed leaders, because of the people who parade their idols down the street. I am tired. Tired of us; us and our little idols we can’t stop staring at and carrying around in our pockets and sleeping with.

When do you give it up, this world with all her festering wounds and oozing maladies, and when do you decide that actually, there is a poem in here if we look in the right places? If we make a habit of turning our attention towards what matters, because that field—all the fields, in all the hearts— are waiting.