(https://www.whoa.in/gallery/alone-girl-sitting-on-a-railway-track)
I am an experiential learner,
Also known as learning the hard way.
I must put my hand in flame
To believe it burns.
I am a poetic teacher.
Those more sensible than I
Find truth in my words and learn
From my burnt-first-hand accounts.
LESSON 1
Matthew said she had bled for twelve years
Before she reached his hem,
Where Jesus called her “daughter,”
And healed her right away.
My blood sheds from the time I was raped,
And bad psychological handling of said event,
And my own foolish tries at love and healing
For the last thirty-two years.
But I have known, (most of that time)
That all along Jesus’ healing hem has hung
Just beside me, close enough to touch,
If only I would reach out my bloody hand.
Now and then I have managed to act,
Desperately, throwing myself on his robes,
Clutching at the cloth, and his flesh,
And muscle, and bone within.
Jesus - a man, with a body wounded,
Having bled, and cried, and loved like me -
With strong hands supports my crumpled frame
And calls me “daughter.”
I learned the hard way that love is pain,
That life is not fair, that innocents suffer,
And that risk and caution, trust and doubt,
Are vicious Catch 22’s.
But grasping at this healing hem,
Enfolded in his rough, warm robe,
-I can give no rational explanation -
My bleeding stops.
Why don’t I stay here? Also irrational.
I don’t know why it heals, and I don’t know why I wander.
I let go, I forget, I try to find love by myself again
And bleed from old wounds reopened.
Matthew tells of a moment’s intersection
In the life of the bleeding woman and Jesus’ hem.
Do we assume that before that moment, she only ever
suffered,
And was only happy ever after?
Rather than her whole story,
Matthew, and the whole Bible, acquaints us
With God’s curious character of drastic love
And ongoing creation.
Unlike the woman who found him
One moment in a pressing, anonymous crowd,
I have known Jesus in me, with me, beside me
All my life. Let me instruct you,
You will experience many things.
Of course you will make mistakes,
Or suffer from the mistakes of others.
You will not always feel healed.
But I know Jesus is real, and always healing,
And always full of fierce love for you,
And always heart-rendingly compassionate,
And always shining bright-light truth,
And always that kind of good with a capital G.
Lesson One: Whenever you think of it, grab on to his hem.
