The worst of it

in response to Luke 21:5–19





But you did not tell us the worst
of it, the thirst of it, working resistance
and witness as persecutions’ victims; did not speak
any warning, assuring us that earth-
quakes and famines, plagues and nations
warring and raging were not the imminent
sign nor a sign of an imminent ending
of all we have come to know; you
failed to mention, no hint or veiled
intimation, in preparing us for betrayal,
for violence and hatred to endure; no,
Jesus, your words stopped short of the real
horrors that lay in the future before us,
the ones who took on your name, your
commission, your Way; you did not tell
us that we would become the betrayers,
the haters and persecutors; that we would rage
war and destructions, become the plague
on the nations we feared. Jesus,
our Christ, forgive us, for we did not know
what we would become, when we turned
our gaze from your light to the shadows
holding our enemies, as they
had become.