Jesus, tell me what it takes to find you:
Must I pass through a number of stages?
Must I leave my whole life behind for you?
Will I meet you working for wages?
Must I find myself dazed and forlorn –
Shell-shocked and shaking with fear,
Cursing the day I was born –
‘til you’d suddenly speak or appear?
Are you really a treasure to find?
What should I expect to see?
What transformation of mind,
Or what knowledge to set me free?
I’ve got to ask you, Mr. Jesus Christ,
Just what you think of a church
That points to your saving sacrifice
And stifles the desire to search?
Who are your real ilk;
Not just the ones you attract:
Are they them who drink you like mother’s milk,
Or those who can Hear and Act?
V.
To some, you’re a personal presence,
Wherein self-hood and Godhood find unity,
While the orthodox see your essence
Translated into their community.
The naturalist calls you a person.
Your devotee calls you divine.
Critics say you’re just a diversion.
Some say you’re a life-giving vine.
And many who have been estranged
Feel that only you are their friend,
Through you, their estrangements are changed,
Though it’s “by their faith” that they mend.
To thinkers, you are a teacher,
And to mystics, a state that is pure.
To the aimless, you come as a leader,
To show them a way that is sure.
VI.
You come like a droplet of rain
From a terrible storm overhead
So that the living may be sustained
While you raise the spiritually dead.
I envision you as a bubble
In the white-water flow of a river,
Rushing through pain and trouble,
But you are not for a moment bewildered.
You are the river of active devotion
Which carves through a mountain of stone,
Heading all the way to the ocean
Where believing becomes what is known.
VII.
I want to walk beside you, Jesus,
Down the road by the side of the hill,
And stop beneath some broad-leafed trees
To draw some water up from the well.
