CONFESSIONAL

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves,” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer Bless me Father for I have sinned I have treated money as though it were an abstraction And have placed the needs of people ahead of the GDP Once when I was dreaming And another time when wide awake I have imaged to myself a world Where workers keep the value they create Where healthcare, housing, and dignity are available to all I dreamed I looked a stranger in the eye And felt the difference and sameness in between I knew that what I saw in them was past my comprehension And I did not need to judge them Or to make them feel or think like me Bless me Father Cover me in grace But not the grace that puts us back to sleep Not the grace that covers over systems of oppression Whose logic touches everything And tells us there is nothing we can do Come with me Father now And leave these holy walls First we will eat, then we sing, Then we will study and sleep Maybe you will have the dream And wake up closer to Gethsemane A little farther from the certainty And cruelty of cheap grace D.B. Ruderman