By John Ohmer

There is a prayer/poem I have loved for over two decades. In fact, some years ago I asked my wife, as my birthday present, to splurge on commissioning calligrapher Michael Podesta to write the prayer/poem as something I could frame:

Poem text:

“We are simply asked

to make gentle our bruised world

to tame its savageness

to be compassionate of all

(including ourselves)

then

in the time left over

to repeat the Ancient Tale

and go the way  

of God’s foolish ones.”

— Peter Byrne, S.J.

Mindful of today’s midterm election, and because the truths of this prayer/poem tie so nicely as we approach the season of Advent, I invite you to consider a few questions, as individuals and as faith communities:

• What does it mean to make gentle a bruised world, and to tame its savageness?  
• What does it mean to be compassionate of all?  
• How are you being compassionate to yourself these days?  
• What good does it do to repeat the Ancient Tale of God-with-us, Immanuel, God-taking-flesh that first Christmas?  
• What does it mean to be one of God’s “foolish ones”?

The Rev. John Ohmer is Priest-in-Charge of St. James the Less in Ashland, Virginia, and is the author of the book Slaying Your Goliaths: How God Can Help (Forward Movement). He writes Unapologetic Theology on Substack.