Editor’s note: This is a prose poem, unlike my typical Sunday psalm. But it is still a prayer, though maybe harder to pray. I wrote it in response to how often I’ve heard this phrase uttered in the time of recent horrific events.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. A brother’s blood fertilizing virgin soil, dark fingers of tangled weeds choking promise, wrapping death-tight vines round our necks. It wasn’t meant to be this way. Children huddled in classroom closets, murder rattling unlocked doors, bullets, scrawled with “unless u die, I can’t live,” slaughtering innocent and guilty alike. It wasn’t meant to be this way. Tombstones standing like false teeth in earth’s weeping, gaping mouth, bodies moldering, the circle of life unfinished. It wasn’t meant to be this way.
Life instead was meant to reflect heaven and earth colliding in an explosion of silky colors, a welcoming bridge of peace as in Monet’s impression of a Water Lilly Pond.
Or like Van Gogh’s Irises, brandishing green swords of life tipped with purple blossoms of tender eternity.
Or Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, Creator and creation yearning, reaching across timeless sky toward one another, shy smiles, fingers deftly bent.
Instead of what was meant to be, is Picasso’s Woman Weeping, distorted death in our eyes, lightning-like lament on our tongues.
Our world girded by evil snake; we huddled together enslaved in a marsh of blood reds, strangled blues, faded golds, as depicted by Jimo Bola Akola’s The Garden of Eden.
In chorus with Munch’s distorted man, we Scream, “It wasn’t meant to be this way!”
Does God hear?
The ultimate act meant for evil God turned to redeeming Art, an instrument of torture and humiliation, now worn on gold chains round our necks, a symbol promising peace in a still weed-infested garden. Dali painted Death overcoming death. Decay redeemed, hovering over the void. Life bursting in clouds of light, a calm sea, an anchored boat, waiting for the tide to turn, readied to launch.
No, as Salvador Dali painted, this redemption in Christ of St. John of the Cross, it wasn’t meant to be this way.
Below are three other blogs that may help.
A Mountain Bike Ride to Remember When God Turns a Life of Ashes to Beautiful Redemption
Sunday Psalm: A Prayer Against Violence and Call to Act with Grace
Mixing Our Tears with Jesus’ Blood: A Good Friday Poem
This poem of yours is a great reminder of hope and promise we have. We live in a twisted world. We have a future that is hard to conceptualize. How does one comfort those who feel the pain? Thanks for sharing this.
Good morning, Harvey. You and Deb have been on my mind and in my prayers. I hope you are well. I’m grateful you found it helpful.
Thank you
You’re welcome, Shari. May God fill your day.
Thank you Eugene. YouTube done a beautiful job of putting to words and images so much of what I’ve been feeling. (And I love that last Dali… Check out his Last Supper as well – magnificent.)
Much love, prayers, and appreciation,
Liz
You’re welcome, Liz. I will check out his Last Supper.
Eugene, I love the way you intertwine words and paintings from the classics. True expression of evil against good in our nation as well as the world, age upon age. Thanks for keeping up the expression of emotion and thought.
Ann, thank you, and you’re welcome. It’s good to hear from you. I always wonder what prompted a piece of art or poetry. What in the artist’s heart needed hope and peace? Take care, friend.
yes, very dramatic and challenging times,… who knew?,… and yet, here we are,… I’m glad that you shared so many different articles, because I do think that it was helpful to have so many differing perspectives to be focusing on,… we want to “be real” and to be able to cope with “what is” (even if it is distressingly awful), and to also be able to connect with God’s over-riding Truth and Reality in the face of these very lawless and wild circumstances that suddenly seem to be compelled to “act out” in this wanton violence and destruction,… no, that is not God’s Way, and it’s not the way things were meant to be,… and I do know that there is something very miraculous about God and His ability to help us transcend these insults and challenges to the “Peace and Love”, that is His wish for All of us,… we need to put our Trust “in Him”, and He will show us “The Way”,… amen