Thirteen Years Twice

In a so-called Third World nation—
A poor parish of rice farmers
Beside abandoned homes,
And abandoned fields
Left silent by internal war.
Still, the stipend came on time,
A modest rupee sum from the diocese,
Enough to keep the church doors open,
Year after patient year. 

 Thirteen later years of ordination
In a so-called First World nation—
Among kind and gentle people
In a parish poor in its own way,
Carrying a decade of worry
About how to pay their bills,
How to guide the affairs
Of a church inherited by a few. 

Plans were shaped with
The outside, unchurched community,
Their mission charts, ideas, and steps,
While new neighbours entered the pews—
People with little to give, 

And no sense of our quiet struggles.
Had we pots of dollars
Passed down from grandmothers and grandfathers,
As some of our neighbouring parishes had,
We could have gone further,
Even though we were few. 

Yet together we discerned
That the doors must close.
A question rose:
“What can the centre do for us?”
And the reply was plain:
“No pot of cash here.” 

But once, in that
Third World place,
A small stream of rupees from the centre
Was enough to keep the doors open. 

So now I stand between two worlds—
One of rupees, one of dollars,
Both filled with hope,
Both filled with pain.
I wonder what God asks of us:
To keep shaping an emerging church,
Brick by quiet brick—
Or to lift our eyes beyond our doors
And finally see 

An emerging One World.