A Voice Cries From the City

A Spoken Word Poem

by Christopher Muller aka Christopher Cero

Words, words, words...

We use words to paint a picture.  A picture to tell a story.  A story to stir your thoughts and emotional inventory.  But basically there are no basics, not really any rhyme nor reason just the reality of the season whether it’s warm or freezin’ I need to express how I’m feeling.  

Now I apologize if I have to make a scene, but it seems nowadays people would rather talk to their friends through a digital screen. Rather update their facebook then to look me in my face. Are we afraid of an actual conversation that’s not mediated by artificial information?

We might need to refocus our span of attention and what we’re giving all the glory ‘cuz I’m tired of rereading the same story of who we’re ignoring.  “A refugee without a home, a homeless man without a meal; an immigrant thrown in prison a child forced to steal.”  Are we confined to an academic frame of mind, busy preoccupied with reading between the lines forgetting to check the margins; never asking the question, “Why are the same people still starving?”

As it reads, 1 Corinthians 12:13- “Jew or Greek, slaves or free, many members but only one body”.  But are we so worried about individual member distinction that our whole body is headed for imminent extinction?  Because Paul said, “there shall be no dissension...

((Meaning—if a part of the body suffers, we suffer... If the hand, then the foot...  Sorry if this gets annoying, but Paul’s trying to communicate it’s ourselves we’re destroying.  Because if it’s in “one body in which we reside”, by ignoring my neighbor to death, am I committing a holy suicide...???...))

So are we many members in one, or a body that’s come undone?  A city in union, or a state of mass confusion?  Are we lifting up the weak or disposing of the meek; unbalanced and off-kilter, without a truth filter?  Petrified to look the “other” in the eye because we’re afraid of what we might see.  That we’re not so different—you and me.  

I’m afraid to say so, but it looks like all systems may not be a ‘GO’, due to a malfunction of the parts, we must go back to the start to discover peace and harmony or we’re just pieces doing harm, gridlocked on the FDR while St. Paul’s sounding the alarm!

‘cuz in Jesus’ view, he gives us no choice to choose who we love or refuse; but instead we abuse and defuse the goodness of the good news and blaspheme its meaning so we don’t have to love anyone who doesn’t look like you or dress like me.  Unconsciously subtracting the man out the human.  The son out the person.  Taking the creator out of creation. 

I think it might be time to try a new Diet, a “Truth” Detox, to take Jesus’ limp, lame, and defamed name out the Proverbial Box. ‘Cuz I think the Christian shape is a little overweight.  Exercising our evangelical mouths, while our faith actively parks its butt on the couch.  

Because whatever we’re doing something’s not working, so what God are we worshipping?  It begs the question, have we bought into the Immaculate Deception?  Is it time to take the health-and-wealth-gospel-of-self and throw it off the shelf and find the BIBLE that reads “love God and your neighbor as yourself.”

So let’s not just “Let It Be” but let us co-author the future, a new history. A story of love, grace, and truth, INDEED—a TRUE STORY.  Some say a revolution, but I say a blood transfusion. An injection of the Real Jesus. God’s Son. The resurrection. He is the fire and the arson. Igniting the light for a community of compassion, racial reconciliation, New York city’s transformation, and justice for all creation.

That’s every part of this body...

That’s you. That’s me. The immigrant and the refugee. The homebound and homeless. The healthy and the sick. The widow and the orphan. The poor and the rich man. The cripple and the leper. The oppressed and the oppressor.

Because together we live or together we die.  Oh YES, together we are dying, or together we are living... so may His Kingdom come on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

**Chris is the Faith Community Organizer and Arts Coordinator for NY Faith & Justice