If not now, when?
Blind church by the roadside
A poem about fear based on Mark 10:47–49
by Rose Niles
Jesus I am sitting
on the side of the life
I should be living
blind
somehow
blind
crying out, “Son of David
have mercy
on a daughter of David”
tell me to be quiet
I ask too much
I have been blessed
and squandered my blessings
hush
I’ll make big corporate folks
uncomfortable
living my truth
my pain
I ask louder
to be generative,
for the creative
divine story
to flow through and into me,
to be healed
to be free of this stifling cloak
of scarcity obsession.
I throw it off wildly
charging forth
never looking back, just
ahead into relationship to
your power alone
I ask
to follow
to not
be blind
with fear
Baptized, reared, and ordained a ruling elder in the Bronx at the age of fourteen, Rose Niles has served the church as a teaching elder, pastor, and supporter of theological education. Rose is bi-racial, a daughter of immigrant parents, a mother of one phenomenal woman, and a lifelong pilgrim. Amazed, she finds herself in Houston, Texas, serving Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary on this leg of the pilgrim journey. You can read more of her poems here.