my dearest father,
i am full of sorrow. my own troubles leave me close enough to touch madness and keep me searching for your Light. then i witness the plight of your other children and my heartache becomes heartbreak, and my father, i can bear this grief no longer. life is short and i’m not getting any stronger.
my dear father, i am suffering. part of me dies when witnessing the pain of my brothers just trying to be men, and when they stand up, being knocked down or shot down again. my heart just can’t take it but i can only watch helplessly each time, hoping for a new outcome, or that there is reason to this exercise. without fail, it kills me. since i know this, is that suicide? if so, father, forgive me in advance, because i will sin again, until i can find a way to stop it from happening.
beloved father, you are dear to me, am i dear to you? if so, why must i love my people as i do? it seems life would be lighter a load to bear, if i could make myself not feel their distress, but that would be more difficult than un-locking hair.
but, loving father, as sure as your tears make our rain, i feel their pain, and do what i can to help us all and call your name, knowing that you will only come when you are ready, not when i request, as a humble servant knows a master will not arrive at its behest. if i call on you again and again, and the result is the same, is doing it again faithful or insane?
devoted father, i know that overall i’m not supposed to understand, but why do some people bite your healers fingers when we extend a helping hand? i know i don’t have much to share, lord.
so, adored father, as you requested, i just try and give the world a little more poetry than just mine, a miniscule section of the world where we all make a little more effort to love, to be a little more kind. but for every person who is grateful and touched, then are five who want to ruin the safe havens for all of us. why is that father? am i doing this incorrectly, did i hear you wrong?
father, i see children’s eyes full of pain, i see young fatherless girls, i see manhood forced upon boys, i see ugliness in your world, i see babies abandoned by their mothers, i see hungry people living in the streets, and when i see these things, i fall to my knees and i cry, pleading to you.
father, i hear men’s backs breaking, crack infants crying, parents wailing at their children’s funerals, and father, their cries are unbearable, so desperately, i beseech you.
father, i feel the pain of my people, the weight of our history, i feel the love slowly leaving the world, and i feel useless when i try to help and i implore you…
father, i smell garbage where children play and i beg of you. i smell death on partrol cars and i beg of you. i taste the hopelessness of the ghetto, and i lay on the ground in lamentation, and begging of you, father.
our father which art in heaven, would you come down and talk to me? could you give me your eyes briefly so that i may see? why can i not give my life as jesus did, only this time instead of taking away sins, remove suffering?
father, please, may i give my life all at once and not one aching, wasted drop at a time? i can’t squeeze any harder and i am ready to die. so carve out this aching heart or give me the power to heal at a touch, to re-create love, to inspire people to believe, to rid this earth of those who exist to deceive, to make this world right again. i beg you, dear father.
sincerely and with all my love,
one of your completely confused and desperate daughters.