The last resort

The last resort                                                                              
 
Most people come to You
(You have said) as a last resort.
 
There’s a fundamental wounding
in coming to You, a violation of the self
 
in even our most timid of intimacies with God
or any of His manifestations.
 
In Your infinite mercy, You draw us past
our intuited fear and allow us our first
 
quavering steps toward annihilation,
gathering us in, tucking us under Your wing.
 
But, even after we become Your lovers,
years later, we often come to You
 
in pain and fear only when our most familiar
worldly comforts have been tried,
 
exhausted and found wanting,
our last resort yet . . . because
 
within every surrender, every intimacy with God,
incrementally, now and then, here and there,
 
moment to moment, there is a fundamental
wounding, a violation of the self as we move
 
so timidly – a gesture, a word, a few steps,
an embrace – closer to our own annihilation.
 
O child of God, come unto the Ancient One,
the last resort, the final refuge of the soul.

(Drawing by Rich Panico)