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A bit of Sunday morning poetry for you today. I’m finishing a wonderful weekend spent with a group of women writers I have come to adore over the years. We gathered at Valle Crucis Conference Center under the tutelage of Katerina Katsarka Whitley. Please search her out on book-selling websites and read her work. Over the weekend, she gave us several prompts, and we responded. The following bubbled up when she challenged us to think of an unveiling. Also, learn more about the Valle Crucis Conference Center and plan a visit. You won’t regret it.

Apocalypse, Unveiling

Truths once hidden demand to be seen and burst forth from their husks of secrecy

That which was unknown becomes as obvious as the sun that shines, or birth, or death

But we prefer the veil

You walk in the garden

We run and hide in the bushes, ashamed

You appear as pillars, fire, and light

We go to Moses and Aaron, choosing mediation over relation

“Come to me,” you say, promising rest for our weary souls

We got to Philip who goes to Andrew, asking, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

You tell us to come like children, with wonder and questions, they unafraid to run to you

We turn and chastise them, clarifying you’re too important for their juvenile pestering

Afraid of our own immature ways, or maybe hoping you lie in your expectations as we lie about our unworthiness

You preach to all, openly and without limit

We fuss at daring Mary for sitting at your feet, a woman learning directly from a man, such a disgrace

But did you not need apocalypse yourself, the truth unveiled by a poor foreign woman?

Someone of no count, no right, no worth?

You said to her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

But because she did not hide in her shame, because she did not accept her unworthiness, because she proclaimed she was enough

She said to you, “Yes, it is, Lord. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

You thought she belonged to a different master, but by her refusal of a veil, she stole the one covering your own eyes

She tore it in two, opening the truth not just for the chosen but for the whole of creation

Apocalypse, unveiling.

The truth, no longer contented to remain behind the curtain, rushed through, ripping the fabric beyond repair, allowing the light to shine for all the world through the darkest places

Even into our hearts, our shame, our unworthiness, our desire to stand safely ten feet away, 

Our fear that in staring at you face to face, we too must own and proclaim that we are, indeed, enough