Trapped? Repent! For Advent 2A

Trapped – in bubbles, not in amber, 

watching our partisan cable networks, 

talking in code, not language, 

antagonist neighbours, intimate enemies, 

clutching at pixels and jingos to save our lives. 

It was like this before – when one-before-One came to say, 

“Repent”, 

 to say, “change your minds”, 

say, “shed your bubbles”, 

say, “deep Beauty is so close, so close – 

is just a bubble-skin away.” 

Leave your bubble, wash it off in water! 

Stand in an old – and Ancient – river place, 

in a new – and Ancient – way. 

Re-enter – like Elisha – the land. 

Cross – like Joshua – the river. 

Intend – like Amos – justice. 

And the Snakes? 

The brood of urbane bubble-guardians 

protecting the wash-starved world from threats of water? 

This one-before-One tells them, 

“You can flee the broken future, 

and live like washed-off people, 

unbubbled and new-minded!” 

All these things the prophet says 

to all those eager to escape their bubbles, 

to all those eager to shelter in theirs. 

There is no wrong place to start, to expect – 

nor wilderness, nor Galilee, nor even where they live, 

those other-bubble idiots, fools, and foes. 

The deep Beauty waits everywhere to be found, 

an ancient sovereign Love. 

The veil has torn, the bubble’s burst 

 that hid the Ancient Beauty from us all, 

 and hid us from each other. 

 Repent!