The Price We Pay

I don't know what happened to me when my daughter got so sick;
I felt that my mother's God, on my daughter, had played a trick.
My mother always said that the bad that happened to me
Was because of sins I committed, and that God could see.

I had learned, at an early age, that sins of the parents
Were passed on to the children, who had to do penance.
How was I to undo my children's problems I caused?
I offered myself as penance for breaking God's laws.

But I knew I was not worthy to be human sacrifice;
Only innocent souls would, as scapegoats, suffice.
My children let me know I make their pain worse;
I will left them alone, rather than continue the curse.

I was taught The "Divine Father" of Jesus, the Christ
Demanded that his own son die as a human sacrifice.
How could I believe in scripture and not firmly believe
My sins led to my children's destruction, like those of Eve?

Watching mistakes repeated by my daughter and son,
I could not abide more shame for what I have done.
I wished that they could start over from another womb,
And let my evil be taken with me to my tomb.

There are those who now say that Christianity
Is about how much Jesus and his father love me.
They refuse to admit that, for many generations,
Religion was about redeeming ancestral obligation.

Coming back to my roots and my mother's death
Has put my relationships and shame to the test.
I have struggled to define my own Holy Spirit;
I'm not comfortable, on others, in judgement, to sit.

But there are many behaviors in which I see danger;
My pointing them out seems to cause much anger.
I've have often been told to shut up and go away;
Many people don't want to hear what I have to say.

They have told me so many of their deepest secrets,
I think they, have since then, come to regret.
I have held their hurts, for years, in my heart;
Am I to be silent as, their mistakes, they restart?

Does my responsibility as "my brother's keeper"
Permit me to silently welcome the "grim reaper",
Whether that reaper is the one who perverts souls,
Or the one who finally reclaims the sick and the old?

The Ten Commandments seem such basic laws,
Yet they have, for generations, given pause.
I am so tired of the parsing of details,
Knowing many believers have become derailed.

Forget about what your "god" will forgive;
Save the communities in which we live.
My "God" doesn't want sacrifice of a fatted calf;
My "God" wants communities that share a child's laugh.

My "God" doesn't want great temples of gold;
My "God" wants someone to hold the hands of the old.
My "God" doesn't care about "God's" earthly name.
Nor what happens to our bodily remains.

My "God" wants greed and arrogance to cease,
And for all of creation to live in peace.
It is true that there are many natural deaths,
But death is necessary to growth, nonetheless.

We don't know what will be our earthly contribution;
I choose to believe it's not for ancestral retribution.
Until we teach our children they're born with clean slates,
We will live with the destruction that shame creates.


We cannot gestate an innocent human with a soul,
Inside a mother who has stopped being whole.
And until babies' sweet souls can be gestated in peace,
It's unlikely that killing of bodies and souls will cease.