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Poetry of Poverty
7/14/09
Today we will share some poems that some of our team members have written as they have reflected on our experiences and work here in Mokattam.
by Brittney Yackley
This place is dirty, rank, filthy.
I think mostly now about the flies.
They love the putrid smell,
The decomposition, the heat.
They rise, circle, swarm.
I think of this village, of these people:
Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world
To be rich in faith?
Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the kingdom
He promised to those who love Him?*
And I think you and the flies
Have similar ideas about
What makes perfect living conditions.
The babies’ faces are crawling with flies –
In the doorway of Om Ibrahim’s one-room
Hovel they pass freely.
They dance in the stairwell of the school.
Flies love stench, decay, neglect.
The flies love poverty, it’s where they thrive.
Where the flies go, so too do you.
The poor are your chosen people
Your Israel, your Covenant.
Among the poor you move, you abide, you alight.
Your spirit surrounds your people
Like a swarm.
*James 2:5
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by Savannah Sanford
The Kingdom of Heaven
Is heaven on earth,
God restoring a fallen creation.
How glorious, beautiful, overwhelming.
It really is like a mustard seed
Birthed from the smallest things:
Visiting a widow when she is all alone,
Shooing flies from a sleeping child’s face
Teaching handicapped kids
The same thing they were taught yesterday
And the day before;
Being welcomed into this place where I don’t belong,
Being fed by those who can barely feed themselves,
Caring for the forgotten
Loving the unloved
The kingdom comes from the mundane
To remind me that it’s God’s kingdom,
Not mine.
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Amen
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by Rodelyn Lipumano
Abba Father,
You are too kind
Because you never rewind on the sins that hurt you;
It blows my mind,
That you leave behind the muck and scum so that we are transformed and can go –
Moving on with the endless flow of mercy and agape love that comes because I know you.
Your plan is great.
You bring on the love and wish to remove all injustice and hate.
Repainting the streets with gold so that heaven and earth won’t fit the mold of our eyes that so blindly see the way you wish the world could be.
We can never take credit for this,
For the man who was betrayed with a kiss,
So that we live for something better than this.
So it’s gotta be a sin to lose hope,
To sit down and just cope
With the brokenness we see, and just simply flee from our duty to show our knowledge of what it is to be free, for we were purchased with a price so it should only be that bringing him praise and glory can suffice.
Amen.
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