En av de fantastiska människor vi mötte vid besöket I Luton (se tidigare inlägg) var Karen Campbell, som läste en dikt för oss. Vi önskar att vi hade spelat in det, för hennes framförande av texten var något extra – men vi har fått hennes tillstånd att publicera texten. Tack, Karen!

Sick

I am sick of religion!

Sick of the words,

the noise,

the lies –

teaching people which people

to despise:

Who to judge

and who must fall

in the name of God

who loves us all.

I am sick of truth claims

which divide:

Over here!  Over there!

You must decide;

for we cannot be one;

we cannot just be –

the chasm, it seems,

is too wide.

I am sick of the god

who you tell me is love,

yet condones human hatred

from far and above:

A god to be worshipped;

a god to be feared?

To my mind a god

of whom to be scared!

Yet this is not the God

I have known –

not fully,

not wholly,

just as much has been shown

to me;

the God who must surely grieve

when in chasing religion

God’s pathway we leave.

The God who loves –

and loves without end;

calls us as child, as servant,

as friend.

Too vast to imagine;

too great to contain –

yet still we try

in vain.

Here is God!

No – over here!

In all, and through all,

yet cannot be where

God wills.

God must be

where we say God must be –

bound up in our words,

our doctrines;

the pictures we see.

I hear God screaming –

or is that my mind –

yearning to leave all the

flotsam behind?

Let them go!

Let us go!

From your chains set us free –

to be the people

I call them to be.

Love the Lord, your God;

love the neighbours who

God, in God’s wisdom,

has gifted to you:

In a nutshell

that’s what God requires us

to do.

So I’m sick of the extras,

the add-ons,

the fluff –

my heart and my soul,

they cry out ’Enough!’

I imagine

God’s sick of it too.

©Karen Campbell, June 2016