Fences and Neighbors, or.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

“Mending Wall” Robert Frost

Baptitzed
or
 struggling and striving –
and.

Catechism defined
community uprooted
hearts leaking
broken over stones built up
before a struggle so great that
only the Lord can win.

which side of the river is this?
exile or promise land?

shaping and reframing
and walking through the
river raging – to the quiet
waters and safe pastures.

Safety never the concern
never the promise –
only care and love
but where that has fallen short
is.
on.
us.

Beautiful images
of God,
who cannot look away
from our own reflections
Losing a sense of where
our stubborn will
ends
and His boutiful grace
begins
or
confusing the one for the other

Losing
the image.

or
hiding from it
under our own sun scorched
fig leaves of righteous
indignation

Right
or
wrong,
and.
Two sides of the same coin.
Causing division
through
shame and weariness,
through
a willingness to plant
a flag
or
walk away – to break
and
draw a line
that no one is willing to cross.

A boundary greater than any river
and
smaller than a foxtail –
and
just as persistent in burrowing into
– under the skin;
seeds planted,
too painful to remove.

And why?
what are we striving for?
where is the community
we built
and
the concern it would take to carefully –
together –
remove the foxtail
and
the fence?

Walking through the water
together
safe from army
cleansed in the flood
Where is the other side?

 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

Genesis 32:26 NIV