Dear Church (a poem)

Recent march in Dunedin, author pictured in the green hat. Photo: Cole Yeoman.

Dear church

While you keep saying things like

God is good all the time

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Amen and hallelujah

God is great

Everything happens for a reason

Hear our praises

Be salt and light

over 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza

mostly, women and children

Thousands more have been injured

thousands more lie under rubble

thousands more are being starved

But you are silent about this

When I try to speak

you say

we must not take sides and

it’s complicated

But it isn’t

It is hell on earth if one group

convinced of their singularity

and the singularity of their

historical suffering

can destroy

with impunity

another

Also

what happened to

let the little children come

blessed are the peacemakers

and

love your enemies?

But I know

questioning Israel’s actions might

unravel your neat reading of “God’s word”

and then what else might

unravel?

I am not mentioning your silence on climate catastrophe

I am not mentioning your silence on rainbow communities

I am not mentioning your silence on our own history of settler-colonial destruction

There are some who read “God’s word” as a story of

hope for the disinherited

justice for the oppressed

life in the face of death

resurrection

But your reading

seems different

and it

kills

~

Vivienne Anderson is an academic based in Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand, who reverts to poetry when other forms of communication fail.