Notes from an early morning, written for anyone waking up unsettled
Another beautiful Facebook post by Allison Burns-LaGreca
“Walking in the Light When Power Insists that It Is Dark”
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0AxYZdRcD3J3E5z4Ahp9dq6BjZ1FpAW9dcffxxJ5haTX6tPtK4o3pYRWQAkZZ4xNzl&id=1584396596
A beautiful Facebook Post by Allison Burns-LaGreca
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02AxmAvcDbTrVY2qSUBEJ214T2zVSTbD8XKtXxrR7dF1NXvEzJ2iyqpCruSqALdAFbl&id=1584396596
“When a Baptized Conscience Refuses Anesthesia”
When a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
the senses sharpen like flint.
The air smells of iron and smoke.
The hymns echo hollow in rooms where truth has been embalmed.
Every silence starts to speak.
I walk through the streets with my collar tight against my throat,
feeling the pulse beneath concrete,
bones of old empires grinding under asphalt,
their promises bleaching in the sun
like abandoned crosses on a hill.
Water remembers me.
It remembers the day it claimed my body,
the day oil traced a cross on my skin
and said, Wake up.
You belong to God now.
There is no numbing that kind of claim.
sleep fractures.
Dreams fill with children calling names we forgot to learn,
with borders stitched into flesh,
with angels standing guard at detention centers,
their wings singed, their eyes unblinking.
I try to pray politely.
You do not let me.
Instead, you bring me fig trees stripped bare,
coins clinking in Judas’ pocket,
Pilate washing hands that never come clean.
You set a table in the presence of drones and ledgers,
and ask me to eat anyway.
Jesus, I see you still refusing the wine mixed with myrrh.
Still choosing pain over forgetting.
Still loving with nerve endings intact.
Still breathing forgiveness through cracked lips
while the crowd rehearses its excuses.
How dare I ask to be spared consciousness
when love itself stayed awake.
hope is not soft.
It is bone-deep.
It is a fist closed around a seed in winter.
It is Mary’s song rattling the palace windows at midnight.
It is Amos pounding his staff into the marble floor
until justice echoes like thunder.
I feel it in my chest, Lord.
This burning.
This grief that refuses to curdle into hatred.
This anger that keeps choosing compassion
even when it would be easier to disappear.
Do not let them lull me, God.
Not with comfort.
Not with patriotism dressed as piety.
Not with the lie that this is just how the world works.
Keep my conscience unsedated.
Let it ache.
Let it imagine another way.
Let it see resurrection even while standing at the grave.
Because when a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
the empire trembles,
the stone begins to shift,
and somewhere beneath the weight of brutality and lies,
new life draws breath
and waits for dawn.
Rev. Allison Burns-LaGreca
Another beautiful Facebook post by Allison Burns-LaGreca
“Walking in the Light When Power Insists that It Is Dark”
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0AxYZdRcD3J3E5z4Ahp9dq6BjZ1FpAW9dcffxxJ5haTX6tPtK4o3pYRWQAkZZ4xNzl&id=1584396596
A beautiful Facebook Post by Allison Burns-LaGreca
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02AxmAvcDbTrVY2qSUBEJ214T2zVSTbD8XKtXxrR7dF1NXvEzJ2iyqpCruSqALdAFbl&id=1584396596
“When a Baptized Conscience Refuses Anesthesia”
When a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
the senses sharpen like flint.
The air smells of iron and smoke.
The hymns echo hollow in rooms where truth has been embalmed.
Every silence starts to speak.
I walk through the streets with my collar tight against my throat,
feeling the pulse beneath concrete,
bones of old empires grinding under asphalt,
their promises bleaching in the sun
like abandoned crosses on a hill.
Water remembers me.
It remembers the day it claimed my body,
the day oil traced a cross on my skin
and said, Wake up.
You belong to God now.
There is no numbing that kind of claim.
When a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
sleep fractures.
Dreams fill with children calling names we forgot to learn,
with borders stitched into flesh,
with angels standing guard at detention centers,
their wings singed, their eyes unblinking.
I try to pray politely.
You do not let me.
Instead, you bring me fig trees stripped bare,
coins clinking in Judas’ pocket,
Pilate washing hands that never come clean.
You set a table in the presence of drones and ledgers,
and ask me to eat anyway.
Jesus, I see you still refusing the wine mixed with myrrh.
Still choosing pain over forgetting.
Still loving with nerve endings intact.
Still breathing forgiveness through cracked lips
while the crowd rehearses its excuses.
How dare I ask to be spared consciousness
when love itself stayed awake.
When a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
hope is not soft.
It is bone-deep.
It is a fist closed around a seed in winter.
It is Mary’s song rattling the palace windows at midnight.
It is Amos pounding his staff into the marble floor
until justice echoes like thunder.
I feel it in my chest, Lord.
This burning.
This grief that refuses to curdle into hatred.
This anger that keeps choosing compassion
even when it would be easier to disappear.
Do not let them lull me, God.
Not with comfort.
Not with patriotism dressed as piety.
Not with the lie that this is just how the world works.
Keep my conscience unsedated.
Let it ache.
Let it imagine another way.
Let it see resurrection even while standing at the grave.
Because when a baptized conscience refuses anesthesia,
the empire trembles,
the stone begins to shift,
and somewhere beneath the weight of brutality and lies,
new life draws breath
and waits for dawn.
Rev. Allison Burns-LaGreca