Con-Fusion

What is exceptional about America?
Is not that we're white, because we're not.
Is not that we're Christian, because we're not.

Want is exceptional is our profound con-fusion.
We're this and we're that.
And have always been so.

But some, who love their whiteness.
And some, who love their christianity.
Couldn't see, refused to see, hated the con-fusion.

The word con-fusion is a good word.
To mingle together, some of this and some of that.
That's what exceptional about America.

Like salt and pepper on some eggs.
Or peanut butter and jelly on toast.
Or a Buddhist who marries a Lutheran.

Now, that's con-fusion ... as it should be.
A world of light and dark.
Cold and warm.

Clouds and sun.
Rain and heat.
Love and hate.

You see, there is season for every thing under heaven.
Because heaven wants con-fusion.
The original garden, a con-fusion of many and all.

And Adam and Eve ate the damn apple.
Because they didn't want con-fusion.
They wanted to own it all.

The took, and they lost.
They closed their eyes and were ashamed.
As any should be, for wanting it all.

So, here we are.
In a nation that exults in a bastardized exceptionalism.
A blinded craziness that refuses to see.

Con-fusion.
The mingling.
Of the many and the all.

Be Not Merciful

Merciful God, be not merciful to us.
When we prefer the lie.

Be harsh to us, awaken us.
To hear those who cry.

Save us from cheap words.
That take your name in vain.

While bullets fly and people die
In noise and smoke and pain.

Merciful God, unto the dead and dying.
Be close and kind, with mercy untold.

But unto us who must decide.
Be not merciful, until truth shall unfold.