Famous

Fame tells lies
It boasts craggy peaks but delivers molehills
Still, we prefer the mountain mirage
And hunger to swallow its half-truth morsels

 Like iced fingers seeking flame
We stretch toward it
Believing fame’s flickers will warm our insecurity enough
To eradicate cold, bare need

In its glow we unearth embers of instagram meaning
Opiating our fragility
Just as Narcissus’s selfie
Captured, then enslaved, then doomed

We misunderstand the strength of Kingdom’s flame
For its candle in the cave seems to boast little
So we chase the gnatted whir of fluorescence
Buzzing about earth, saying nothing of heaven

We neglect this upside down math
Amnesiacs to the truth that an upper room of nobodies
Set the world afire
As they ignored fame’s vacant promise

Today we make the Gospel paint-by-number palatable
Forming it into acceptable sound bites
Reducing it to slogans like “you matter; you’re enough”
Jesus, it’s You who matters most. You are the Enough One.

Oh how we chase splash
We clamor for personal power
Thinking both will enflame the Kingdom
Forgetting that growth erupts from the small places

Mustard seeds broken beneath the humus
Hidden in darkness, unheralded, unsunned
Tendril skyward toward warmth
For the sake of fruit, not praise

O Famous One, deliver us afresh
Set a holy fire to our plywood platforms
Forming, instead, the ethic of the wooden cross in us
For Your glory, not ours