I Am Weeping Today

Upon the red maples, the azaleas and tulips, the deepening rain nourishes the magenta, purple, pink and orange, where steady, tall pillars of oak stand like sentinels, as silent, smooth towers, lavishing in the nourishment of the falling heavens.

These drops of liquid feed the earth, appearing in tiny splashes from the grey sky that sits over us like a lid.  It turns to a mist now, and fades, washing, regenerating, and fulfilling the call of the land to an entrenched, green bed.

My own tears however, fall empty onto silent grey tiles in a still dark room, where Jesus has promised my prayers will not go unrewarded, or unheard, for the Father will recompense my groans and hot, strained cheeks, swollen for the plight of a woman with a toothless grin whose daughter sold her body today for a meal.

I weep today.  Weep with me, brothers and sisters in Christ, weep with me!  Go to a private room so your children don't see you, but weep with me, and then tell them why you are weeping.  I weep today for the one who scavenges the dump for some semblance of food found in black, plastic bags, vomited out from the backs of trucks, loaded with refuse and tag-along boys who race from the streets to catch a ride. 

"I hope this is the truck from the good hotel!" they say.

I weep today for the dollars by millions we spend on our buildings during our Sunday collections, asking for prayer to seek the Lord's counsel, to lead us to see that it may come to pass.  For we do offer help to the plight of the widow, but it's fractions, it seems, compared to our cathedrals.  I weep today for the small, mud homes, where diseased mothers moan in pain and leave their children to the pang of the streets.  It's the gangly men that will pay a whole dollar for her pleasure, where her delicate hand beholds a new treasure, a tender cup of grain in the palm on her skin.  She'll eat today yes, and tomorrow it begins again.  Perhaps if she sells herself enough times she'll get away, after saving a few dollars, but ah, how she'll say, "Please take me to hospital," and hear "My dear, you have AIDS."

Weep with me, brothers and sisters in Christ!  Weep with me for the price of her life.  How much does she cost to rescue or keep safe?  What are we doing for her and what of her mother?  She has a little brother, so now I weep for yet another. And another.  And another.  The hundreds, the thousands, the millions--they're there!

Build up your churches and create the splendor of God's beauty.  By all means rejoice in cathedrals' transcendent glory.  And give equal to the coffers of your monetary goods, for it's widows and orphans who are in the Father's moods.