The poem I have written here is part of my emotional journey in dealing with the violence of ISIS through the lens of my own faith and my confusion around the whole issue. At the heart of my wrestle here is mercy. The poem is messy, but in it I am processing the contrast between ISIS and my own sense of spirituality and faith – the God who saves through deliberate weakness, the ultimate demonstration of mercy. If anyone takes offense at anything I have said, that is not my intention. Rather, this is a mirror into my own inner emotions and turmoil. If you struggle with any of it, please, let’s sit and reason as allies towards togetherness in mercy, peace, and forgiveness.

—————-

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

‘In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds –
The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful,
Sovereign of the Day of Recompense.’

The book begins.

Merciful, Merciful, Merciful, Merciful.
Four times, Merciful.

But vengeance, but violence, but blood, but tears.
Anything but mercy.

From the desert, from the dust the monster rises,
It names itself as ‘State’,
Speaking the name of the one who is said to be Entirely Merciful.
The monster steals sovereignty and creates an age of recompense.
In blood, fear, death, and terror it baptises its adherents.
Anything but mercy.

Age against age the monster harks back,
holding its martyrs high in the name of the conqueror they follow.
A martyr is a martyr when their blood is spilled.
Spilled they seek to spill the blood of others,
conquerors dying for their cause, thirsty to conquer in the heavens.
These are their honoured ones, clothed in dark glory.
Anything but mercy.

Warriors fallen in battle, the martyrs for the monster,
creating martyrs of another kind, another way.
The tears of the saints fall to the parched ground.
‘A message signed in blood, to the nation of the cross.’
Grief, welling up from the gut.
Clothes torn. Wailing of mothers for children taken.
Anything but mercy.

Those other martyrs, the silent ones,
following a lamb who uttered horrendous words,
‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’
Pray for those who spill the blood of those in orange.
Pray for those who spill blood and let it soak your shores.
Mercy. Oh God, please no, not now. Anything but mercy.

I am dust, and to dust I will return.

In the face of the screaming, blood drenched monster,
it whispers in silence, the voice of the Lamb,
‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.’
Martyrs.
Peter, put away your sword.
Mercy.

They say that God cannot hang from a cross.
The Merciful One.
What greater mercy than this?
That Christ Jesus – who being in very nature God, the Entirely Merciful,
he made himself nothing, became a slave,
humble and bound,
bound by conquerors,
obedient to death, even death on a cross where so many others should hang,
Mercy.

Merciful. Exalted. The Lamb.

I fear the monster, but I crave the Lamb.
I fear the conquerors, but I kneel.
I kneel not for their knife, but for God to be merciful, merciful,
Seventy-seven times, merciful.
Nothing but mercy.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

————

Here is a thought on this issue that I wrote and recorded to be played on radio: