in history
prophets are people
who speak truth
often at a great cost
they are the persons
understood by the people
that deliver messages
direct from the divine
“turn from your
wrongful
violent
divinely displeasing ways”
“and return
to goodness
to wholeness
to your self”
three years ago
a young man
with all the answers
left with a suitcase full of clothes
and a soul full of questions.
until then,
he had belonged
to everyone
except himself.
he left home
not because he wanted to
but because you should
never disobey a prophet.
the prophet, as they do
told him the truth
that he was certain about everything
save for who he was.
the prophet, as they do,
revealed the future,
a life of dis-ease and dis-pleasure
unless he repent of his ways
the prophet, as they do
exhorted and instilled a hope
offering a vision of authenticity
a chance at true contentment
and so, even if reluctantly, he left
not because he wanted to
but because you should
never disobey a prophet
and he returned home
no – not to where he had come from
but to the thing he long ago forgot:
himself.
homecoming is not, he learned
a return to your hometown
it is relinquishing the things you had to become
in order to be safe
homecoming is not, he learned
a return to your childhood bedroom
it is witnessing your inner child’s terror
and finally extending them safety
homecoming is not, he learned
retelling experiences from an alien land
it is surveying the landscape of the
aliens parts within.
homecoming is not, he learned
a father’s or mother’s hug
it is mothering the parts of yourself
you deemed unlovable and orphaned long ago.
in returning home,
forgoing his beloved certainty
the prophet
guided him back
back
to his goodness
to his wholeness
to himself.
the prophet, as they often are
once persecuted and hated
for unyielding in telling an inconvenient truth
– now venerated and revered
for the prophet gave to the young man
the thing he lost along the way –
his humanity
and the wondrous delight
in the strange beauty
of his mysterious existence.
SO VERY HUMAN 