Our Ways, Your Ways

Most of the time spent looking for You
We run into ourselves.
Goodness we thought meant getting even.
Stories of ancestors haunt us.
Surely their crimes are remembered.
One day a curse will strike.
 
You send that curse packing.
Don’t be haunted.
Here is the law.  Follow it:
Care for the needy.  Don’t take spoils.  Watch those wandering eyes.
Seek what is good and come back to Me.

Freed from the past, I fall captive to myself.
Keeping score, my faults reproach me.
I ponder my defects alone.

Into this debt-filled world come children
Squealing, teasing, crowding round.
They bound past the scolding
To touch you.

God, we are bone-tired of harshness
And stumped by joy.
We have sized up things long enough.
Show us goodness that does not reckon.
Teach us your ways.