Corbet Dean

Uner an overexposed, powder blue, high summer sky I drive
until a sudden, searing sun blas slaps me
by bouncing off the back
of a beat-down, brown Suburban in front of me.

Maybe I can blink back the unforgiving light,
but I can't ignore the sight
of the bright, white letters
that litter the block, black background
of a single sticker stuck to the SUV before me:

"The only good Christian is a dead Christian."

I try to tune out the intolerance
by gazing, instead, at the golden cross
dangling
from my rear view mirror so harmlessly.

I want to appreciate
that symbol of self-sacrifice, but I can't
because I'm too busy cooking up home grown hate
for some dumb bumper sticker.

In fact, I decide to accelerate,
blasting through the thick, light blue
clouds of exhaust
to move up to that oil-dripping, gas-guzzling,
testosterone-heavy, big, brown, beast of a Chevy
so I can glare at the driver and clearly see
a lonely kid a lot like me.
As he smiles, then speeds away,
I'm left shocked and ashamed
at the venom in my hypocrisy.

If I claim Christ's name I cannot
harbor the habit of hate so easily.
Every time I do, I rape the spirit of a savior who said,
"They will know you are a Christian by your love."

On the evening of October 11th,
one woman was called downtown
and asked to thumb through stacks
of crime scene photographs.

The pictures weren't perfect. Most were grainy,
and some seemed bathed in a backdrop
of black-blue.
Yet in the foreground, slightly out of focus,
the image of a son's still, lifeless face
appeared broken, bloodied and bruised.

I'll never know how that woman felt
when she was told her son passed away,
but I know
the mother of Matthew Shepherd needed love.
Instead, she woke up the next day
to preachers, picket signs, and people screaming
at the ghost of a son
just because he was gay.

Dearest Christian:
no one cares what you say
if they are beaten by the spirit of your speech.
If your language is loveless
your message is unclean.

To my athiest friends,
and brothers and sisters of other faiths
please believe
there are a few Christians worth keeping around.

We are the ones, down on the ground,
begging the God called Love
(and begging you)
for forgiveness
for infesting our faith
with infected ideas like intolerance and hate.

From A Collection of Crime Scenes © 2007 by corbet dean
.