9:00 AM

BREATH IS HOPE

I live in a country

Where

Every teardrop

Is a prayer

Where blood

Is currency

And life

Is traded without regard

Yet you laugh

With a friend on the street

You shake hands with your brother

You drink chai

And you love each other well

Over plates of rice and camel meat

In a world that spirals

Each day towards death

Each life is a defiance

Each exhalation a psalm

The animating breath of God

Is found in desolate places

Because Christ

Is with the broken

When I am lost

Hopeless

Beaten down

And at the end of my rope

I am not far from Christ

I would rather

Clean the sewage drains

In the kingdom of Heaven

Than sit enthroned in another

Because the Good News is this;

God is near to those who bleed

And every breath is hope