… out of fear for the Jews, the doors were shut where the disciples
met, [and] Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace to
you!’
John 20:19b
Astonishment glides in from outside our locked-up fears,
when we have boasted about our faith,
gloated about our inflated courage,
but seen every serious word of devotion float into the
empty sky
like a child’s lost green helium balloon.
only anxiety keeps the balloon stuck against the roof,
our courage imprisoned when it seems that every
trusted deliverer will always and ever, never fail,
be trumped by death and its sting.
Astonishment glides
in from outside
once our boasts are punctured,
our gloats come down to earth,
our trial-balloons limply lie as cloths of latex,
Astonishment glides
in
from the outside of death,
from the outside of fear,
from the outside of our best promises
and breathes Peace back into our
exhaled lives who had promised, then hid,
bragged, then covered our tracks.
Astonishment does not knock or ring,
does not announce with trumpet flourish,
but, banning the bars on our self-imposed prison,
proves death wrong,
our doubts useless,
our promises bare paper,
and offers only wholeness to men half here,
“Peace”