“Oh faithless and perverse generation!..."

We imprisoned
the wealth of Your Love
in the miserable courtyard
of our bureaucracy.

We thought
we would subject Your Spirit
to the deceptive dynasty
of our Babel-muddled tongue
which means one thing today
and quite something else tomorrow.

We have spent
century upon century in disputes
in order to define You
who “lie beyond all boundary.”
And recklessly exchanged
“the Spirit that quickeneth”
for the Letter that mortifies.

We scorned
to include in the interests
even of one of our Synods
the Love that is your Essence.

We forgot
that in addition to Your words
you left us
the bloodied footprints of Your life.

And while we should have been kneeling,
to find the meaning of Your words,
we invested ourselves in studies
of “genealogies, and contentions,
and strivings about the law.”

And within the walls of our fanaticism
each of us
retains the illusion
he is the unique and absolute master
of the “true” truth...

But you, You sowed
the seed of Your Love
in simple, humble and anonymous souls
which we have no suspicion of,
or would even deign to listen to
the breath of their valuable presence

But they burn the oil of their life
spreading love
and lighting the path
which with such stubborn arrogance we deny;
just to show us
how deeply overtaken by night we are…

20 Aug. 2004