STARLIKE

Love from the centre of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply.

Romans 12:9-10 (the message)

The gathering gloom

Threatens,

Its movement

Unrelenting;

The trajectory of war

A descending spiral:

Degrading,

Ugly,

Futile.

But disrupting the darkening sky

Points of light shine

Starlike,

Denying evil

Dominion.

Welcome signs

At borders,

Homes opened,

Tables enlarged.

The tenderness

Of strangers

Offering tokens of compassion,

Arms outstretched to hold the weary,

The terrorised,

The displaced

And dishevelled,

The collateral damage

Of self-serving power.

And I know of

The light of another star,

Appearing unexpectedly

In a world not too dissimilar to ours,

Lifting the heads of an occupied people

Longing for deliverance.

And magnificent words

Of hope and promise spoken,

Of divine re-ordering;

The powerful humbled,

The rich sent away empty,

The lowly lifted,

Reverberate still

For such a time as this.

Chris Matthews