Fragments

When they were satisfied, he told his disciples,"gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." John 6:12

Today, a poem seems like the best response -








For all the Fragments

Some moments have been triumphant
celebrations of life's fullness and
successes can go out the door quickly leaving
fragments, bits and pieces of our lives scattered
like ashes, like dying petals, like debris.

We pray and sweat and toil and dream sometimes
we lose sleep in the night aching
for fullness, for plenty, for blessing and abundant
affirmation of the story we tell, the story we live.

We come unprepared with our hands
empty and open, knees bent, head
bowed in reverence and in fear.
We come vulnerable, human, challenged by
success and failure, challenged by need and possibilities
unimagined and lost at sea.

You come to us and invite us to
rest, to a banquet, a fullness where having leftovers
is plenty, being left over is blessing of the lost
ones, the ones who didn't make it to the hillside, couldn't find
the table or the place of plenty.
You saved the fragments from the fire, from becoming
mulch, from being wasted so we could know you
were waiting for us.

So here we come, beggars to your hillside,
the left behind leftover gang of lost broken
by the changing tides and winds and we come to you
who has promised a way home.
Here we are with our hands empty
our bellies aching, our eyes anxious and our hearts full
of knowing that you love us
so much that not one may be lost.