This is a poem I wrote some years ago now, after visiting the women's psychiatric ward in the town where I was living in Morocco. Mental illness is not treated nicely in most places but especially not in the developing world. Women - and children - are very vulnerable.
Under the law, 'repudiation' means a woman may be divorced with only a few words and cast out onto the street to beg, or to prostitution. Often, women fleeing violence or simply refusing to obey family will be put under psychiatric care. Being different is not acceptable, nor is fighting the status quo.
Jesus, however, set about to turn the Jewish law on its head when he preached grace and repentance.
This poem is based on the story of The Woman Caught in Adultery, from the Gospel according to John, chapter 8, verses 2-11.
Leaving without grace by Jo
Vandersee, April 2004, Morocco.
Edited 2015
PART 1 - The Pharisees
We all walked away.
Turned our backs and went away.
Couldn’t bear the things He’d said –
Tried to shut them out instead.
His head bowed and looking down
As He scratched upon the ground.
We just couldn’t stand and stay –
So we turned and walked away.
She was crouching, not too near,
Clutching shreds and clutching fear.
Her head too was hanging down
She was waiting for the sound
Of rocks to whistle through the air
But that sound just wasn’t there.
They had turned and walked away –
They just could not bear to stay –
“Where are those who condemn you, woman?”
“I don’t know, my Lord, I…” –
“Nor do I condemn you – go now –
Leave that way and sin no more now”.
PART 2 – The woman
They had no idea of what had taken place –
They just all got up and left there - without grace.
They just couldn’t bear to see the look on that naked woman’s face.
They had tried to have her killed but then they all gave up the chase.
She was now covered with His robe and with His grace –
She was so very frightened to look up into that space
Where before those angry men had loudly broadcast her disgrace;
But now a Man with His true words had given grace –
And she believed it – as it filled that empty space
Inside her heart, to go and change her filthy lace
For garments made of righteousness and grace.
PART 3 – The rest of us
We are leaving, just like they did, without grace,
When we fail to see small miracles take place,
When we ‘box’ the love of God into our invented space,
When we imagine that there is not enough of grace
For the ragged, tired and lonely, for the difficult and dirty,
for the handicapped and homeless, for the masses and
the multitudes that beg and cry for freedom from
the devil’s cold embrace.
It’s our job to touch this world – one by one, day by day –
With a touch that enters their space –
With a look that then expresses all the love that’s on His face,
So we never walk away and leave that woman – any woman, ANYBODY –
without grace.
(received 'Highly Commended' award at the inaugural Anglican Diocese of Brisbane 'Spoken Worship Poetry Competition', October 2015, Senior division)
