On Being Bought

I am best lorded over when kept out of the open air.

I become a timid and fearful mouse, scurrying about in search of security. Security, stability--these become gods, and terrible Greek gods they are: always promising, always failing, and that on purpose.

Men become titans to whom I offer acquiesence, obeisance, and reverence. I dare not speak, I dare not write the things of the True and Holy One, lest a Titan-Man melt me in a blaze of fire from his mouth. Or worse, take away my stability, withhold my praise, besmirch my status of "respected."

I have known this to be true, perhaps not for all mankind, but at least for me.

And still, I walled myself in
with yellow bricks.

Today,
I felt the bark on all of the trees in my yard.
I studied the sky through their thinning leaves.
And I remembered,
deep in the earth and tangled roots,
the stability of my God,
the wild glory of the untamed Lion of Judah.

I flushed,
shame-blood pouring into my cheeks.
The hollow praise of men,
burning in my ears.
Today I learned.
I can be bought.
And have been.
I learned.
I can be bought for so pitiful a trifle
as a word of praise,
a look of respect
--still less--
a feeling of respect,
a vague sense of belonging.

Give me my respect:
all the world may perish outside my yellow walls,
and I'll not say, or write, a word.

Then I learned a deeper truth,
deeper than the fickleness of me,
I am bought by Another.
Not bribed to be quiet,
not coerced into submission.
This buying is deeper.

I am bought to live the life of Christ.
Away from the respectability brick walls.