I Could be Talking to God: Which Woman Would I Be?

“I could be talking to God”:  my own ‘series’ of reflections that I could have/should have written instead of the one I did - thinking not of what others should do, but what I actually do do:  what I should do but don’t or shouldn’t do but do.  I ponder my own role and leave yours to you.  For the fact is, every time I open my mouth, I could be talking to God.

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Written as my own ‘instead of’ to the post HEY WHITE FOLK

O God, the woman dressed so nice

to go out to dinner with her husband

the one who left her keys in his pocket

and stood behind the barrier of flesh

and prejudice

unable to do the tiniest thing of 

snatching the keys from his pocket

with a smile, a glint of the eye,

promise of things to come

back in the safe nest of their

own haven of love and goodness

that woman

the woman denied access

for the color of a skin

she cannot, will not, should not

hide

she and the other women

the white ones who walked by

pretending blindness

as she cried her shaming

burkhaed by their ignoring

into the oblivion of not

were I there, which would I be?

I want to be the hypothetical woman

the one who stops and stands with

(I am trained for that, you know)

who questions and insists and shouts

and speaks softly yet effectively

because I want to be the rescuer

but I wasn’t there

and if I were, who would I be?

For I am no one’s rescuer

that’s just the dreamscape

of my imagining where heroines

stride the land and look an 

awful lot like me

who would I be?

who would I really be?

I wouldn’t be her –

I am not sufficiently brown

to draw the stares, the sneers

I wouldn’t be her because I

can’t be her

but please, please, please, God

don’t let me be them –

the walking by ones

that’s my fear

the dread of my own closets

how easy from the sidelines to cheer

and shout and jeer

but were I there,

would I have been different?

Lord, I hope so

I pray so

help me to know so

help me to remember that

even though I wasn’t there

I am often there

that I am a human

and thus called to stand

with, be beside, solidify

myself to the hurting ones

the silenced ones

the pushed aside ones

the burkahed ones

help me to be, to become,

that woman

because I am there

because I am here

Amen