As a lawyer, even as a
middle-school teacher
you never are to ask these
kinds of questions,
questions where you don’t
know the answer,
those that can go horribly
wrong, alert others to danger,
to culpability, to
retribution, to a finding of guilt
No, you don’t ask those kind, their ilk; you avoid them
you avoid them at almost all
cost
She knows too, in her line
of work, her calling, to serve the Lord
that they are dangerous,
unscripted, unnerving, all too prone
to grab the spotlight, grab
the wheel or the rudder,
to pilot the plane, or at
least her plan, into the ground
Yes, I am talking of a
pastor and the children of the congregation
clustered within the
expectancy of Christmas Eve, down in the chancel
for the impromptu
questioning of a pastor, in “Children’s Time”
Maybe the title of that portion
of the bulletin should give a hint,
or give pause; but not this
morning, as we soon saw
Maybe she felt safe with
these children, not quite as secular as the maddening crowd
but they answered in kind,
from the tip of the neon reality of Christmas all around.
“Who is coming tonight?”
between the Advent wreath lighting and
the reading from Luke Chapter
1, the Advent story
Naturally, the response was,
_______________.
Go ahead, you can fill in
the blank as well as I; It was the bearded one
not the swaddled babe in the
manger, that was the first retort, almost in unison
With a bit of prompting,
they came around; But. . . that was after she lost them
She asked again before the
prayer, the benediction of the children’s time.
And, … , yes, it was Santa
who was coming, once again.
And Jesus too. Thank God,
for that. Amen.
Edited November 9, 2013
A Dangerous Question – v2
December 24, 2006 14:41
A Dangerous Question
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poems are copyrighted by Raymond A. Foss, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
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at Ray Foss
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