Vignettes of people on the edge of despair

These are the thousand statistics outside the news printed on a page

being in and out of fashion again and again

though an occasional by-line will speak well of these friends

Death arrives as soon as life is met

Folks drag butt through the rubble of hope

as one house burns midst choking smoke

A stray shot has blown some Black away

a young punk designed for the early grave

his nick-name remembered as a memento soon forgot

The lawns display the plastic arts of our time

McDonald cups lounge against a fence

decorating the grass along with Wendy's and such

No pink flamingos in the cluttered fields

but discarded tires sculpted in piles

along pathways a thousand feet have dug

Some with brown-bags lean against store facades

sometimes drunk steadily talking to someone

squatting in bare-buildings where grass and roaches roam

Store-front churches are monuments to decay

saving the saved holed-up within walls of bricks and shouts

praying for the damned while cursing the lost

the neighborhood's in despair but its spirit isn't crushed

partying and smoking and watching their butts

laughing midst tears seeping through their boasts

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

  -Politicians, religious leaders and teachers know of our longing to remain infantile.  It takes a spiritually mature person to enter the Kingdom of God as a little child.  We prefer to remain childish and have someone tell us what to believe. 

  -...no one would chose to follow a hard path if an easier one were available.  It seems to be a maxim of the spiritual life that on one undergoes spiritual or psychological growth and change willingly.  We are either dragged into it kicking and screaming or circumstances force us into the next scene of the human comedy.  Ironically, the institutional Church is often as obstacle to spiritual growth.   As we have seen, it has something of an investment in keeping its members in an infantile state.

  -The first imperative is, Look!  Looking means a contemplative willingness to see what is there in front of us without prematurely interpreting what we see.  The desert tradition claims that if we look long and accurately enough, the tears will begin to flow.  Thus the second imperative is, Weep!"  The fruit of honest contemplation is "the gift of tears"; and the sure sign that our attentiveness has been focused and honest and the tears cleansing is joy.  Joy is the fruit of desert patience. Thus the third imperative , Live!