Wide Eyed (With Artist Commentary)

When I met him on a sidewalk,
he was preaching to a mailbox
down on Sixteenth Avenue.
And he told me he was Jesus
sent from Jupiter to free us with a bottle of tequila and one shoe.
He raged about repentance
and finished every sentence
with a promise that the end was close at hand.
I didn’t even try to understand.
He left me wide eyed,
in disbelief and disallusion.
I was tongue-tied, drawn by my conclusions.
And so I turned and walked away
and laughed at what he had to say.
And casually dismissed him as a fraud.
I forgot he was created in the image of my God.
When I met her in a bookstore
she was browsing on the first floor
through a yoga magazine.
And she told me in her past life
she was some plantation’s slave’s wife-
she had to figure out what that might mean.
She believes the healing powers of her crystals
can bring balance and new purpose to her life.
Sounds nice.
She left me wide eyed,
in disbelief and disallusion.
I was tongue-tied, drawn by my conclusions.
And so I turned and walked away
and laughed at what she had to say.
And casually dismissed her as a fraud.
I forgot she was created in the image of my God.
Not so long ago, a man from Galilee
fed thousands with his bread and his theology.
And the truth he spoke
quickly became the joke
of educated, self-inflated, pharisees like me.
They were wide eyed
in disbelief and disallusion.
They were tongue-tied, drawn by their conclusions.
Would have turned and walked away
and laughed at what He had to say?
And casually dismissed Him as a fraud.
Unaware that I was staring at the image of my God.