Power & Weeping

(reflections from Matthew chap. 2

...and my own experience)

Have you listened?

Have you heard?

It's the sound of weeping!

Can you hear the lament?

Rachel is crying out!

She refuses to be consoled.

Herod...dead babies...funerals...

Bethlehem wailing!

Those that seek power

or who strive to hold on to it,

will stop at nothing.

Deceiving, lying,

even outright murder

are simply necessary means

in their quest to satisfy

an insatiable hunger for...

P O W E R !

Even though

the day of despots

has mostly passed,

power-mongers

still shrewdly use

all the same evils,

creatively cloaked

in stealthful legal moves,

religiously pretentious justifications

or maybe just

a dog & pony show of distractions

to ruthlessly secure their positions.

The fortress of their strength

is shamelessly built with the rubble

from their destructive,

self promotion campaigns.

Ironically,

many who survive the plundering barbarism,

become loyal supporters.

Those too crushed

to be of any use

are left outside the citadel‘s wall of protection

to be trampled underfoot

by the rush of those fleeing

to this refuge

of strength and safety.

With the noise

of the frenzied mob of refugees

pushing into

the strongman's fortress,

who can hear the cries

of those wounded

and left for dead

by the one

to whom all others are running

for protection?

Have YOU heard?

...W E E P I N G ! ! !

...Rachel, still weeping!

Rachel's weeping,

memorialized in Holy Writ,

validates and affirms

the tears and lamentation

of all those, past and future,

who have been victimized

by those obsessed with power.