The Ones Who Actually Came

Corinth had heard the words before,
of patience, bread, and grace;
of gifts that served the common good,
and love that made a place.

The stranger found a welcome there,
the hungry received bread;
by night they prayed for all the Church,
and gave where mercy led.

They learned that faith could take its form
in ordinary care;
without both fear and favour, they
made room through work and prayer.

But envy entered quietly,
as envy often will;
a grievance nursed, a name compared,
a voice that must be still.

The factions rose, the peace grew thin,
the old divisions stirred;
and Clement wrote to call them back
to love they once had heard.

Perhaps this is the harder truth:
we learn, and then forget;
the table built with honest love
needs tending even yet.

We dream the room before it fills,
more beautiful than true;
we picture who will take the chair,
and what good people do.

Then living people enter in
with stories of their own;
with wounds we cannot quickly mend,
and seeds we have not sown.

One speaks too much, one will not speak,
one questions what we know;
one carries grief beneath the skin,
one needs more time to grow.

Then comes the urge to mend the room
by changing those inside;
to smooth the difficult away,
and make the strange comply.

Believe like us, forgive like us,
grow quickly, settle down;
and love can learn to wear the robes
that fit a ruler’s crown.

Christ is the measure here for us,
not whether bonds remain;
but whether love can serve and give
without demanding gain.

Acceptance cannot bless the harm
that stronger hands impose;
nor call it peace when wounded ones
are silenced for repose.

True unity is not a mold
where every gift is pressed;
it makes a room where difference stays,
where each can breathe and rest.

The table may be scarred with use,
the voices disagree;
some prayers may rise with confidence,
some scarcely form a plea.

No Camelot, no perfect room,
no life untouched by pain;
but bread still passes hand to hand,
and names are learned again.

And grace is there before the work,
before we make it right;
the love we tend is first received,
then carried into life.

For Corinth knew the songs of love,
then somehow lost the tune;
and every church may sing them well,
then lose the music soon.

So letters come, the bread is passed,
the chairs are moved once more;
and mercy makes another place
for someone at the door.