Stay With Us

oh my troubled lovely,

oh my weeping daisy,

oh my fading candle,

oh my broken beauty,

oh my crumbling stronghold,

stay with us

here on Earth

don’t rapture yourself;

~ we need you – we need you

– we need you – we need you

before you decide to leave,

sit with me here in your unmade self

at the edge of your unmade bed

and listen to me

tell you one last secret

oh my tearful songbird,

if you can find

a way to

survive long

enough

someday you’ll become

the answer to somebody

else’s most desperate prayer

by just being there in

the same room that they are in

~ as they gently fall apart

and in that moment

you won’t need to say anything

you’ll just drape your hands

over theirs like a Good Friday altar cloth

until they believe in resurrection again

~ that’s why you can’t give up

your life will someday be the rainbow

at the end of someone else’s storm

if you aren’t still here

when they fall off

the bridge

then who will be there to catch them?

I know it’s not quite fair

~ but your life isn’t just yours

it also belongs to that person

who is going to need you

to be alive later

you are part of the community

of unintended angels

who has a sacred calling

of surviving your darkest night

so someday you can be the

sunrise for somebody else who

will need you to prove to them

that daybreak always returns

oh my clouding diamond,

oh my shaking sunflower,

oh my doubting saint,

oh my disappearing moon,

oh my quieting symphony

stay here

with us

on Earth

because if you do

you will save a dozen lives

by first saving your own

it’s the great pyramid scheme

of hope

you must persist

so they can watch how you persist

turn this riptide you

are drowning under

into a ripple

of hope

that stretches

through time

that you can ride until

you reach that one moment

in your life where you’ll find yourself

in a quiet room with somebody

who wants to become a shadow

and you’ll be able to say to them

with authority the same thing

I am saying to you right now:

“oh my troubled lovely,

oh my weeping daisy,

oh my fading candle,

oh my broken beauty,

oh my crumbling stronghold

stay with us

here on Earth

don’t rapture yourself

we need you…”

~ unintended angels

of comfort,

pray for us ~

(john roedel)

art by the singularly amazing Charlie Mackesy