Of Poignant Dreams and Powerful Poems...

The dream:

I was walking down a dirt road and I passed by all of these healthy looking deer lying around. When I got to the end of the road I was horrified to find a severely starved deer tied up to a tree. I ran to the convience store because I knew the deer was to the point of death and could only swallow and hold down milk...solid food wouldn't do for this severely hungry deer. So I ran to this store and I was in a desperate hurry because there was only lunch meats in the fridge and finally after searching and searching I found some milk and fed it to the deer in a sauce pan. Then I woke up. I think this is about seeking "pure spiritual milk" and returning to the "elementary principles of Christ" 

The poem:

What if I saw Jesus?
Not in my pancakes or on a crying statue
But back then
When he walked in human form
Before he beat in the hurts around me
And his name was constantly on their breath

How would I define him?
Nothing spectacular
Would I second-guess his goofy theology? 
And question his use of scripture?
Would I even like Lazarus
Or would I wish he had stayed dead?

Would he heal me if I were bleeding?
If I was deaf
Or blind
Or just a little hard and angry
And if he did
Would I turn and follow only him?
Would I even turn back and thank him
Or would I be one of the ten 
Who shrugged off a miracle?

If he charged me to tell no one
To not mention God’s shining on him
Would I listen?
Or would I blabber on and on
If he told me to go and share my story
Of brokenness and pain
Would I run and jump at the chance to
Utter some vulnerability
Or would I wait and hide in shame?

Would I like the people he liked?
And see past the crookedness and ugliness

Or
Would I define Jesus just like I defined the rest of you?
You, being the ones around me
Who have poured into me
And hurt me the same

When Jesus sat at the wedding of Cana
Would I label him a drunkard and discredit him from then on
When he flipped over the tables in the temple
Would he be destroying my merchandise too?
T-shirts devoted to the idol I have built
Bumper stickers devoted to the temple of megan cullip

When he touched the leper
Would I be able to hug him and high five him
The same?

When he stood up and yelled in front of everyone
In the temple
During Succoth
Would I dismiss him as obnoxious?
Or too loud?
Would I compare him to those people in class?
Who can’t seem to resist to raise their hands
And shake up the status quo
While the rest of us sit in the back
Play dumb
And watch the fire inside fade to black
Stopping the waters from flowing within

Would I trust him enough?
To crawl into his lap,
To let my hair down
And wash his feet

Or
Would I consider him cold and hard?
And bury my talent in the sand 
Like I often consider authority to be
How I shut my mouth off
For fear of being noticed
Fear of their presumed harshness
And so never make a risky investment

While others flourished and were nurtured
By rabbis who only wished talents to multiply

When He cried “Abba!”
Would I have dismissed it as weak and childish?
I haven’t spoken “daddy” 
Since the days of Hop on Pop
When I still jumped inside to see
Him come home
Before I stiffened and ran away

Would I have the sense to realize that
In my Abba’s house
There are many rooms
And so stop striving and clawing my way
To be recognized and fed 
The filth muck syrup of human praise

Would I stop striving
And simply
Rejoice with those rejoicing
And
Weep with those weeping

Would I have the courage to keep knocking
On the door of my savior’s house
All the while believing 
That God is a god
Who waits
To test
And know
If our hearts have what it takes
To beat in tandem with His

Could I lead like Moses?
Standing and looking over the Promised Land
The one I failed to inherit
And yet 
Still
Bless the ones who pushed me?
To anger
And frustration
To strike the rock
And so die 
In the sand my feet touched
When I first called Him holy

Would I bless them?
Your children

Or 
define them as rebels
Recalling only their darkest hours
And in my last hours
Would you Oh God..be the one to bury me?

How would I define Jesus
Would I define him as sweetly has he 
Has defined me?

Or
Would I miss your beauty?
Because I was afraid
To approach the mountain
Where the thick darkness was
Where you stood

Could I look past it and see
That the whole time you
Stood there smiling
Shining on us
Thundering the whole time
Just to say
You are not angry

To say that you know
On a good day
And a bad
We have made these choices
Thought these thoughts
And you just want us to come back

To realize that fig leaves
Are never enough
To cover ourselves

To understand and know
With all our hearts
That death 
Has lost its sting

That while we sit punching air
Sweat and blood running
That you are a God who has already
Fought the fight
For
Us

And that we need only 
To be still
And watch
How you define and write
New names
New stories
All pointing
To the fire that burns inside of us
And the spirit of him who
Still
Raises the dead

~ Megan Cullip ~