This bit of spoken word poetry was written as I walked through the diverse and beautiful Mission District of San Francisco, asking God to help me simply love …
My Thoughts
Sometimes they get all messed up, they get all jacked up, all tripped up.
I see the tough guy with the tank-top under the double-x T-shirt,
gold chains hanging down and a scowl on the brow,
and I feel threatened, I feel offended, I feel defensive.
I see the hipster with the precocious smirk, listening to some band he’s proud to know because other people don’t.
The T-shirt with the cute little graphic
New Balance shoes, Cool tattoos, the funky hat,
the ritual coffee cup and the road bike that makes him peg his right pant leg On his oh so tight jeans.
My thoughts get all messed up in my head,
I’d like to love but I’d rather not.
My own insecurities and my own peculiarities are calling.
The little boys hop the fence into the half finished Garfield Square.
Pipes and rocks are used instead of the baseball bats and balls that never came on Christmas morning.
Rocks are whizzing past my baby girl’s head. Anger rises in my veins like a wave at Mavericks.
What feelings am I feeling now? What thoughts race through my tired brain?
When the man at the park scolds me, shaking his head, for not bringing him a bicycle .
While my family sits the drunken man knocks on the window of my car and complains that we will not give him food. He shakes his head in anger and disgust, scaring my two lovely ladies.
What now? Thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings …
I need to breathe. I need to stop. I need to rest.
My God says He loves, He cares, He sympathizes, He wishes well
He created … In HIS IMAGE
He grieves when He sees the heroine needles.
He cries when He sees the lonely child.
Jesus spoke of a life abundant,
A life He came for us to have.
Echoes from my Sunday school childhood ring in my ear …
Change my heart oh God, Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God, May I be like you
Let me be so in tune, like a head bopping to a Jay Z tune
My thoughts full of your thoughts
May my brain be full of good thoughts, full of generosity
May my heart be filled with a compassion it has never known
May my feelings find direction and inspiration from my Creator
Let me think YOUR thoughts and feel YOUR feelings for the people I see.
