Old friend, what can be my love for you now?
I have no easy words for you,
no flowing rhymes or gentle measures,
now that I’ve seen with my own eyes
how you hate trans people more than you love your country,
so much you’d rather burn it all down
than let them be themselves,
and hate the Global South so much,
you’d cede your grip on half the world to China
to get those people suffering again,
and hate undocumented immigrants so much,
you’d haul them from the holiest places
and send them to that God-forsaken hole,
and hate Black people so much,
you’d make the skies unsafe
to get them out of air traffic control.
“Hate? No!” I see you charging toward me now,
your eyes ablaze. “Not hate but keening love
that loves so deep it only wills the good,
only the highest good for all on Earth,
on Earth as it is in Heaven, world without end.”
I see and honor this your faithful love,
but I see, too, the fear behind your love.
And that is all we have to talk about.
This is my love for you, to name your fear:
fear of your love, what it could do to you.
I know it well. I’ve felt that fear myself,
fear of the cost
of seeing people as they see themselves,
the terrible cost,
and I can tell you I’m still paying it;
and yes, it’s true:
you can lose your faith by listening to people;
and yes, it’s Hell,
losing the things that made the world make sense,
and made you who you were:
one of the two in “Man and woman He created them,”
one of the children of the ancient Patriots,
one of the favored of History and God.
Yes, you can lose it; yes, it’s Hell to lose,
but Saint Paul would have gladly gone to Hell
for those he loved. Without works, faith is dead,
and this is the work of faith:
to hazard faith itself in the field of life.
If you will not dare to listen,
your faith is a tomb,
your hope an acid that corrodes
your love to scornful hate,
and my love for you is a fast-locked gate.
In Christian faith, hope, and love, then, listen.
In mercy I beg you, listen.
In friendship I beg you, listen.
by Amos J. Hunt