The Bathroom Poet’s Gospel (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

For many years, I frequented a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts named Algiers. It was a favorite. Delicious Middle Eastern food; truly fine coffee. Cambridge was quite a distance from my home. So, every time I was at Algiers, I went to the bathroom before starting the long series of subway rides home. 

That’s where I first saw the poem. 

home had took me 

to where too much time 

had locke me in 

in my wrong ways 

and the fumbles of 

a memory, and left me 

where I first began 

begging: "Christ let loose 

these ghosts from my bones." 

Men see a lot of things written on bathroom walls; mostly things not repeatable in polite company. And believe me, after a while, guys just stop seeing them. But this caught my attention the very first time I entered that bathroom ... and it kept getting my attention every time I was there. Finally, I wrote it down. 

I’ve thought a lot about that poem over the years; wondering what the author meant for the reader to get from it. After mulling it over for some years, I realized he wasn’t thinking about the reader, at all. 

It’s too raw. It was scrawled on a bathroom wall, not published in the New England Journal of Poetry. This guy was hurting ... deeply. 

And yet ...

From the depths of his circumstance, the poet called on Jesus. He knew who could save him, and he wasn’t afraid to write that name high up on a wall where many would see the savior he claimed. 

If I could find the author of that poem, I would thank him for his reminder that God can be called on in all circumstances, even when —perhaps, most especially when— things seem their worst. 

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PHOTO (Men’s restroom wall at the Elephant House coffee shop in Edinburgh, Scotland): Steve Orr 

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Join us for DaySpring’s Post-Polar Vortex Lectionary Breakfast this Friday. As usual, we gather at 8:00 on Zoom for such a pleasant hour. There’s Bible, discussion, prayer, and laughter ... and whatever breakfast you show up with. 

Contact me for the Zoom link.

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera if you don’t wish to be seen and to mute the microphone if you don’t wish to speak

Blessings,

Steve 

SCRIPTURES FOR THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=72

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm 22:23-31

Romans 4:13-25

Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

Second Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2021)