There was no one there to say a few words

over the place you finally found rest.

Here is the elegy I wish your mother had heard.

It might have helped her know someone else cared.

***

You were so talented

and charismatic.

A Judean sophisticate

among rough Galileans.

From the beginning I knew

we would struggle;

you were so zealous

for your truth.

That’s why I kept you close,

hoping to break

through your fervor

with the Peace of God’s Kingdom.

My love for you was tough;

as tenacious as your will,

as strong as your self-interest,

as resilient as your resistance.

All the while, my heart

was in a cascading lament

as you tumbled

toward your abyss.

In the end, as I washed your feet and shared

a last meal, we acknowledged the chasm between us.

Yet, when I called you friend as you betrayed me with a kiss,

I believe you knew my heart was breaking.

***

Wherever your story is told,

you are known as a tortured traitor.

I hope, as well, all will know

Someone loved you to the end.

Don has spent the majority of his career in education teaching from academy to post graduate. For the past 18 years he has been in academic administration first as Chief Academic Officer and then as Assistant to the President for Mission at AdventHealth University. Don has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University, and a Ph.D. in Counseling from Purdue University. Last fall he and his wife Merrie Lyn retired to Kettering, Ohio to be near family.

Photo by Einar Storsul on Unsplash

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