Tenured Otherwise

​There comes a day
when everything you knew 
about the world shifts
like equinox light
and you know 
you’ve entered a new season.
 
I watched evil
systematically tenured
then judge me unworthy.
Crushed, I lost faith
until seeds sown in hope
bloomed cynical
 
and I walked away.
I left my gifts at the altar
where they rotted, 
unwanted 
and backed away
undone, utterly undone
 
uttering cries of dereliction
on the outskirts
of the dregs of my life
and all its work
devoted to proclaiming
God’s goodness.
 
I rested in the womb
of God’s tomb for years,
perplexed, not knowing
what to do--or how-- 
silent, defeated, 
waiting, fallow, wondering: 
 
Will there be resurrection?
Or is it all an idol hope
taught by powers of death
who bilk us of life
to shore up megalomaniacal 
self-aggrandizement?
 
I don’t know, yet this I do:
I was faithful,
not sinless, but faithful still
to the God of love
who calls us to love
no matter what.
 
Instead of writing about it,
isolated in my lovely tower
(and it was lovely!),
the call to love
students and children 
and dying parents won
 
Until I was undone
and utterly victorious,
for I have risen from the grave
to a new life
of hands-on service
to comfort those dying
 
into their own resurrections.
My mission failed
while God’s prevailed.
This is all I really wanted
after all—for the Son
to shift with global transformation.
 
And so it’s done,
though something sad remains
whispered through time
of what could have been
if only we would
systematically tenure love.
                                                
                     © February 2019, Tess Lockhart.  All rights reserved.